There are many ways to reduce inequality. While there has been some positive change, studies show that inequality is growing for 70% of the global population (United Nations, 2020). This can make social and economic development difficult. Since the beginning of the pandemic, it has become obvious that Covid-19 is hitting vulnerable populations the hardest as well increasing discrimination for those same populations (United Nations, 2020). Target 10.7 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals is to “facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies” (United Nations, 2020). This is because migration has been shown to contribute positively to development outcomes and some studies suggest that migration could be one of the best ways to significantly reduce global income inequality (Iqbal, 2015). Migrants and their families can benefit from many aspects of movement such as increased income, skills, and capacities (Crawley, 2018). 

Overall migration has been shown to have a positive effect on the receiving country (Devarajan, 2013). Trends suggest that most economies will see an increase since migrants typically perform jobs that permit the economy to be more productive such as childcare and household services (Crawley, 2018). Migration has always been a highly debated political topic as it is a highly visible reflection of global inequalities (Crawley, 2018). An additional issue is that not everyone has the same access to the benefits of migration, and when individuals do migrate, they often find unequal access to rights and social resources in their new countries (Crawley, 2018). This is why we created Welcome Home. This app consolidates and provides search capabilities for several different services that a newcomer to Canada might need, such as refugee services, community centres and green spaces. The app allows users to search for services through several methods and provides information about the variety of services available to them. We wanted to create an app that would help people who are new to Canada in order to reduce the stress inherent in migration and to help welcome them to their new home.

Welcome Home is an app that provides newcomers to Toronto a place to search for a variety of different services that will help them make Canada home. The app provides everyone one might need in an easy-to-use format. When you first open the app, it opens to a default extent of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In this initial extent there are three layers available, refugee housing, newcomer settlement services and the boundaries of Toronto neighbourhoods. Any point in these layers can be clicked and a pop-up will appear with detailed information about the location and services available to help users learn more about what is available to them. There are additional layers available such as community centres, parks, libraries and places of worship all of which also have pop-ups available to provide more information. As well a layer entitled Neighbourhood Rankings is available which shows a suitability analysis. This shows users which neighbourhoods contain the highest number of services as well as the lowest crime rates to help guide them when searching for new accommodations. There is also a link along the top bar which opens a survey which can be used to provide suggestions for services you would like to see included on the app.

Some of the ways this app is helpful to users beyond providing information is the widgets and pre-set queries we have available. These can be found in the top left corner of the app. The direction widget provides directions by car or by foot to help guide users to their destinations, while the share widget allows users to share this app with others. The filter widget contains several pre-set common searches which allows users to find the information that could be useful, for example there is a language filter for refugee housing and settlement services. The query widget provides a keyword search to allow users to search for services not covered by the filter widget.