aCities turn to startups to solve housing, traffic, other woes.

Several municipalities, government agencies want to work together to solve housing, traffic issues and more

As the Bay Area struggles with a shortage of housing and congested freeways that are rapidly deteriorating many residents’ quality of life, a handful of local cities are asking tech startups for help.

Cities and agencies including San Jose, San Francisco, Walnut Creek, Fremont, BART and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission on Tuesday put out a public call for entrepreneurs to help them solve the pressing challenges they haven’t been able to tackle on their own. They’re hoping to find technology and expertise in the private sector that will allow them to make strides on housing, transportation and other issues through Startup in Residence, a program by the San Francisco-based nonprofit City Innovate that connects governments and startups.

“They’re ready to really roll up their sleeves and work with these startups to build solutions,” Jay Nath, executive director of City Innovate, said Tuesday during a media conference call.

San Jose is looking for a startup to help the city better collect data on its affordable housing stock. Every year owners of properties reserved for low-income tenants must tell the city who is living in their units, the tenants’ income and

how much they pay in rent, so the city can ensure the properties stay affordable. Landlords enter that data into a clunky Excel spreadsheet, which city staff then have to enter by hand into the housing department’s database. The process can take two months, said Rachel VanderVeen, deputy director of the San Jose Housing Department.

The housing department is looking for entrepreneurs who can speed that up by creating an online portal allowing landlords to enter their data directly. That will free city staff up for the more important task of analyzing the data and searching for problems, violations and other trends, VanderVeen said.

“It’s going to just ensure that we have quality affordable housing for the long-term,” she said.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is seeking technology to help reduce traffic in the Bay Area by improving emergency response to crashes. The MTC is looking for entrepreneurs to help the organization analyze how long emergency responders take to clear accidents, with the goal of getting roads open sooner.

“Most government agencies don’t have great access to data analytics,” said MTC Commissioner Nick Josefowitz, who is running for San Francisco supervisor. “And you have this enormous ecosystem in the Bay Area that’s helping, up until now, private sector companies do that.”

The Startup in Residence program will accept applications for solutions to these and other challenges through Nov. 7. Entrepreneurs interested in applying can visit startupinresidence.org.

Once they apply, startups can take advantage of a streamlined process that wipes away some of the bureaucratic headaches that often dissuade privatesector

“It's going to just ensure that we have quality affordable housing for the long-term.” — Rachel VanderVeen, deputy director of the San Jose Housing Department

companies from attempting to work with government agencies, Nath said. The procurement process, which otherwise could take weeks or months, will take less than an hour through the Startup in Residence program.

Startups that are chosen will have four months to work on the problem, and then will display their results at a demo day this spring. Successful startups are eligible for a contract to continue working with their government partner.

But in past years, only 40 percent of participating startups have been awarded a contract at the end of the Startup in Residence program, Nath said. This year he’s hoping to increase that number.

The San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation founded the Startup in Residence program in 2014, and it has since spread across the country and into Canada. On Tuesday, 28 government entities posted more than 80 calls for help.

Israel-based startup ZenCity recently completed the Startup in Residence program, using machine learning to help San Francisco’s 311 program better route service requests to the appropriate departments. Startup in Residence helped open doors for ZenCity, said CEO Eyal Feder-Levy.

“We all know that there are huge opportunities in gov tech,” he said, “but one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs…is to get the access to the people who are actually experiencing these challenges, to get access to the data, to get access to the actual processes.”