Jada
Jada, 19. Aged out last year, Jacksonville. Six weeks on a friend's couch. The lease ends on the 30th.
This is an illustrative account. Every detail is invented.
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Full case
Situation
Jada is 19, aged out of care last year in Jacksonville, and has been sleeping on a friend's couch for six weeks. The friend's lease is up at the end of the month. She has a part-time job, no savings, and a caseworker she hasn't heard from since her case closed.
Why this case matters
This is the crisis case, and the one every person in the room has met. When a youth ages out, the system's obligations end and hers begin, on the same day. Jada is inside the window NYTD measures for homelessness. The argument is not that the product prevents this. It's that when the system has let go, the product is still holding: the voucher she may be owed, the deposit help she doesn't know exists, the documents a landlord will ask for, and someone to ask at eleven at night.
The feature she used
Lexi. At eleven at night she asked how much a deposit usually is and whether anything helps. She got a straight answer: up to $500 of transition assistance through her health plan, paid as services and items, which can cover a rental deposit, and Aftercare Services, which exist for people whose case has closed. Then she asked about the housing voucher, and Lexi told her the catch: she can't apply for it herself. Her child welfare agency has to refer her. So the first step is one phone call, and it's already on her plan. When she said "the 30th is soon", the answer named the emergency line on her plan and the trusted adult she chose herself.
What changed
Her Benefits screen shows the voucher, the transition assistance and housing assistance with the reason under each. Where to start names the real office in Jacksonville, with its address and phone number, which we verified ourselves. Her Vault holds the three things a landlord will ask for: her Florida ID, her birth certificate, and the letter that proves she was in care at 18. Her plan opens on one call to her former agency's independent living office.
Said out loud
Jada's case closed a year ago. Nobody is assigned to her. The friend's lease ends on the 30th. What the product did was tell her what she may still be owed, a federal housing voucher and Aftercare, plus deposit help she had never heard of, and then it told her the one call that starts all of it. At eleven at night, with no caseworker, she got a straight answer and a next step. That's the floor.
The federal line
NYTD asks youth at 19 and 21 one blunt question: have you been homeless in the last two years. Jada is 19, on a couch, with a lease ending. She is the number. The voucher is federal. HUD's Foster Youth to Independence program exists for exactly her: 18 up to 25, aged out, no stable housing. It requires a referral from the child welfare agency and supportive services funded through Chafee. Both halves exist. Neither reaches her, because her case is closed and nobody told her to ask. The product doesn't house her. It tells her the voucher exists, that she can't self-apply, and which office to call, and it puts the deposit help next to it.
Honest note
There are two things Jada may be eligible for that the product cannot see yet, and it stays silent rather than guess. We would rather miss than tell a young person something is hers when it isn't.
How her information is protected
- She owns it. U Navigate is not the state's system of record. Her account is hers. Nothing about her is shared with a caseworker or anyone else unless she chooses to share it.
- The record can't be rewritten. Her Journey Record is append-only. Entries can be added. They cannot be edited or deleted after the fact, by her or by us.
- Every row is locked to her. Database access is enforced row by row. A request for her data returns her data only, even if our own code has a bug.
- What the AI is given, exactly. Lexi knows her first name and her state, so she doesn't have to repeat herself. Her last name, email, phone number, address, date of birth and account identifier are never sent to any AI provider from her account, and an automated test fails our build if that changes. A document she chooses to upload is different, and the next line says how.
- When she uploads a document, the AI reads it. That's how Lexi summarizes a lease or finds a deadline on a form. The document is hers, the summary is hers, and neither is used to train anything.
- No ads. No data sales. Ever.
- What isn't done yet. We don't yet have a Business Associate Agreement or a zero-data-retention commitment from our AI provider. Until we do, we tell agencies that plainly and don't accept HIPAA-covered data.
Engineered by co-founder Shane Cupid.