A Washington teen has created a website that connects Ukrainian refugees with homeowners willing to host them. Avi Schiffman came to fame two years ago when he built possibly the most popular website in the world tracking cases of COVID-19. Now the 19-year-old is putting his coding skills to use again, this time making UkraineTakeShelter.com to connect hosts who’d like to help with Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion.
While home in Seattle during a gap year from his studies at Harvard, Schiffmann is working on start-up projects, but also carved out time to build the website to do what he could to help Ukrainians. "I felt if you are a stressed refugee literally running away from explosions and gunfire, are you going to go to some government website that's filled with paragraphs and jargon? No, that's ridiculous,” says Schiffmann. “Instead, you can go to my website and just immediately enter your closest city or your current city and you immediately see listings.”
Now Schiffmann is trying to promote the site so more hosts will offer up their homes to help Ukrainian refugees. He’s been reaching out to European media in the hopes of getting more hosts in countries where Ukrainians are already headed. He’s also open to working with anyone who can help him get the word out. "There are already more than a million refugees that have left the country,” he says. “As the war escalates people need to go somewhere.”
Source: King 5