When fourth-year statistics and data science major Damon Dvorson was in his second year at UC Santa Barbara, he solo-signed three housing leases for his roommate group. Inexperienced with the renting process, he assumed that he could back out of the leases — until a property manager threatened legal action to collect debts of over a million dollars.
Housing scarcity and unaffordability have long been a concern for UCSB’s administrators and students. Courtesy of Damon Dvorson
He turned to platforms such as Facebook and Craigslist to find people to take over the leases, and while he was ultimately able to do so, he found the process incredibly difficult. This experience inspired him to create Housing Helper, an app designed to help students find housing and match with roommates.
“I was going around to all these different platforms like Facebook Marketplace, Facebook Groups and Craigslist, yet all of them were flooded with spam, scams and bots,” Dvorson said. “I’d say one out of 25 responses I got was from a real, genuine student looking to move in.”
Housing scarcity and unaffordability have long been a concern for UCSB’s administrators and students. In 2024, Santa Barbara County (SBC) settled a $3.7 million lawsuit for UCSB’s failure to comply with its Long Range Development Plan (LRDP), which required UCSB to construct housing to accommodate the growing number of students. Additionally, housing in Isla Vista is more expensive than comparable housing units in SBC, with a median price of $5,750 for a 2-bedroom unit according to 2022 numbers.
The University is currently in the midst of the San Benito and East Campus housing projects, the earliest of which will not be ready for students until fall 2027. Dvorson sees housing as one of the most persistent and imperative issues among UCSB students.
“I’ve spent four years here at UCSB, and I think that the number one problem that I’ve seen in this university is housing,” Dvorson said. “It’s all anybody talks about. It’s housing, housing, housing. ‘Oh, I need a roommate. Oh, I need a sublease over the summer. Can’t find a place for next year.’ All these different groups share this core, central problem, and that has led me to look for solutions.”
Dvorson began working on the app in summer of 2024, coded the initial version over the course of a month and launched the first version last July.
“I kind of just got to it on the seventh floor of the UCSB library,” Dvorson said. “The initial version took me a month of work — 20 hours a day, coding every single day, day in and day out.”
Housing Helper includes a swipe-based interface — which Dvorson describes as “Tinder for housing” — allowing users to swipe right on properties they’re interested in and left on those they’re not. Users can view listing details, see who else has liked a unit and connect with others to fill open spots. User profiles include roommate compatibility scores based on lifestyle preferences such as cleanliness, smoking and pets.
Users are required to verify their identity through a UCSB university-issued email in order to register. According to Dvorson, this process, along with optional social media linking, has helped prevent scams.
“We haven’t had any complaints of fraud since we’ve launched,” Dvorson said. “Through our .edu verification, we’ve automatically validated that every single user is a real student.”
Property managers interested in listing on the platform must go through a screening process. Dvorson said he confirms managers’ reputations by checking their Google reviews and posting anonymous Reddit questions asking what people think about property managers on university-related subreddits.
“We make sure that property managers are trusted and reliable,” Dvorson said. “The number one thing about our platform is safety. We need to keep students safe from predatory property managers.”
Since creating the app, Dvorson has collaborated with other students, including fourth-year computer science major Daniel Hwang, who worked on the app’s design. Dvorson has also worked with UCSB’s American Marketing Association, whose members have helped create social media content and conduct market research such as focus groups for the app.
The app is still in its early stages and currently operates with approximately 6,500 total users and 1,000 active users. Dvorson hopes to expand the app’s scope after graduating this quarter, beginning with expanding to other University of California (UC) campuses and select universities outside California.
“A lot of the UCs experience the same issues with housing,” Dvorson said. “Berkeley, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, SDSU are all on our list. California housing is so scarce, and the need for a group housing platform is especially prevalent here. Beyond California, we’re looking at CU Boulder, Florida and ASU.”
The app’s development process hasn’t come without challenges. Dvorson said funding is a major hurdle.
“I did [recently] run out of funding, and I’m a big believer that nobody should ever work for free,” Dvorson said. “Hopefully I can fundraise to get some people back on the team and compensate them accordingly. But as of right now, it’s just me, myself and I.”
Dvorson believes his app has impacted users by facilitating connections with potential roommates and housing providers.
“The biggest thing is just connecting people,” Dvorson said. “It’s either connecting people with housing providers willing to put a roof over their heads or connecting students with one another.”
A version of this article appeared on p. 5 of the Apr. 24, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.
