Potential changes to API fields

[Chrysaora]

From Danny McGlashing (who coordinated this effort on Harvey & Maria):
"Key questions for shelters we asked were:

• How many beds do you have available?
• How many for men, for women and for children.
• Do you need evac - are you being flooded?"

[Chrysaora]

Another suggestion, from me:
"Does your staff speak Spanish?"

[Chrysaora]

From Sabrah n'R:
"I strongly suggest that you also add questions about whether people need any particular kind of ID to stay at the shelter and whether local police or other authorities are checking IDs or warrants upon entry. Lack of ID and fear of the police are issues that often stop marginalized people from accessing shelter and in some cases may get them turned away from a shelter."

[miklb]

We have confirmed through news reports & link to it on the home page that ICE is NOT active in the affected areas. Local police harder to confirm. It did happen in FL county during Irma until news spread.

[Chrysaora]

@miklb That's great to hear, from what I've heard some shelters still require photo ID and information about what is/isn't acceptable would still be useful?

[miklb]

most definitely, just want to temper fears and urgency a little bit.

[omnilord]

Perhaps a long-term solution for future consideration would be to move questions and answers to a separate, dynamic field such as json or equivalent table structure (questions, answers, shelter_questions). This way, questions can be managed by an administrator from within the app without modifying the database schema or the source code further, which could introduce defects at an inconvenient time.