Every year, hundreds of thousands of NYC Housing Court cases are filed. Most tenants appear without a lawyer, and many lose their cases, but not because the law was against them. They lose instead due to things like missing a 30-day deadline they didn't know existed, filing in the wrong courthouse, or not knowing that a pending motion doesn't pause their appeal clock. Importantly many don't know that losing at trial isn't necessarily the end: it positions you to initiate the appeals process, which can result in a binding win for you and every other New Yorker. The NYC Housing Court Appeals — Pro Se Guide is a free, mobile-first decision tool designed to expand the resources available to self-represented litigants. By asking tenants one question at a time (e.g., Which borough? Did you receive a Notice of Entry? Is eviction imminent?), it generates a personalized, printable action plan with the exact court addresses, deadlines, and procedural steps for their specific situation. No two users get the same checklist, but every user gets the precise information they need to successfully file an appeal.

This grant will support Aidah in a legal review of the application to ensure the procedural guidance stays current as court rules change, as well as translations into additional languages to be able to support as many New Yorkers as possible.

In addition, grantee Aidah Gil writes of her own journey in building this application:

"Beyond the tool itself, building this has been a deeply personal journey for me. Besides having my own housing court case, for a long time, I didn't think I was smart enough to code. That changed when I discovered the free TechConnect program at the New York Public Library (NYPL). Through their classes, I learned HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python. I gained the confidence to start learning other languages on my own, and quickly realized that not only could I code, but I absolutely loved it.

As someone who loves to think deeply, explain complex ideas and communicate them, coding has given me the power to actually build the things I am trying to explain. It has completely changed how I create—and honestly, giving life to these ideas is probably going to do wonders for my social life, too. I love coding because I experience it as empathic communication and a psychological asset. It allows me to build things that protect people from getting overwhelmed by complexity, and myself from becoming exhausted by explanation. After all, why explain in paragraphs what I can demonstrate through production? I have to preserve my energy. From now on, everybody's getting a link as a response if they ask me a complex question; and I won't be trying to convince anyone with words anymore… they can argue with my prototype LOL.

"So, here's the conclusion and short version of this call to action: I really want to encourage anyone else who feels intimidated by tech or like they're constantly explaining themselves to give it a try. You are absolutely smart enough to code, the resources are out there waiting for you and coding will let people experience your brilliant solutions without getting bogged down by the complexity of how you got there (you can enjoy that complexity yourself on the backend! haha).