City Lead (Volunteer) – Center City Philadelphia Office-to-Housing Project

About Reside Act NOW

America is short millions of homes, and in city after city rent eats more of every paycheck. At the same time, downtowns are full of office space nobody is using. Reside Act NOW exists to help turn that empty space into homes people can afford.

Converting an office building into housing is slow and uncertain. A city has to work out which buildings could realistically work, what rules and financing stand in the way, and how to be ready when federal money opens up, usually with little staff time to spare. We want to make that easier for everyone involved: housing offices, planners, owners, developers and neighbors.

Here's what we've built so far. Our open engine reads a city's own public building data and estimates, for every tall commercial building downtown, how much daylight each floor gets, how many homes it could hold, what conversion might cost and how big the funding gap could be. We publish the results free at resideact.org for five cities: San Jose, Denver, Philadelphia, Boston and San Francisco. Anyone can look up a building, check and adjust its numbers, see homes laid out on a typical floor, find the grants and incentives that apply, and download a two-page summary. Everything we publish is open for anyone to check, copy or argue with.

About the City Lead role

We're looking for a volunteer City Lead for Center City Philadelphia, where we've screened 100 tall commercial buildings. The data gets us a long way, but a map can't tell us what's happening on the ground. You'd be our person in Philadelphia: the one who knows the city page best, keeps it honest and helps it get used.

This role is open-ended. Some things a City Lead might do:

• Check our building data against what you can see and find, such as vacancy, uses, floor counts and recent sales or conversions
• Follow local laws and policy changes that affect conversions, such as zoning, permitting, incentives and state housing bills
• Write short blog posts or write-ups about Philadelphia housing and conversion news
• Get local planners, architects, developers, housing groups and students using the site
• Answer questions and pass along feedback from Philadelphia users
• Suggest buildings or neighborhoods we should screen next
• Join a monthly call with City Leads from the other cities
• Help bring on more Philadelphia volunteers as the team grows

If you see something else Philadelphia needs, bring it.

Who we're looking for

• Lives in or knows Philadelphia well
• Dependable: a few steady hours a week matters more than expertise
• Comfortable digging through public records and writing clear notes
• Bonus: background in planning, architecture, real estate, law, journalism or local government

You don't need a degree in any of these. We'll walk you through the data and how the screen works.

What you'll get

• Credit by name on the Philadelphia city page and on anything you write
• Hands-on experience with housing policy, land use and public data
• A reference letter after 3 months

We're an independent volunteer group, not affiliated with HUD, Congress or any city government. This is an unpaid volunteer role.

How to apply: Click "I'm Interested" and answer three short questions. We reply within a week.