We launched a new website for Neighborhood Housing Services of East Flatbush earlier this week. NHS of East Flatbush revitalizes underserved neighborhoods by creating and preserving affordable housing. It offers homeownership education, financial assistance and opportunities for community leadership to neighborhood residents.
The dynamic new website lets visitors search for available homes by neighborhood, sign up for classes, subscribe to a newsletter, donate to the organization, and read the latest news on issues relevant to them.
One of the essential technical requirements was for staff members to be able collaborate on additions, edits and updates on the new site. We are able to provide this through the use of a variety of plugins and components integrated into Joomla!, an open-source content management system. We also incorporated several requested features, while suggesting a few of our own:
- A simplified forms-submission solution so that all neighborhood offices can track responses to class and event sign-ups and create their own reports;
- A comprehensive real estate listings and database management solution with the ability to integrate rich media (photos, video, audio) into homes for sale descriptions;
- A News and Events feed so that staff members can easily post material relevant to their own neighborhood office to the main site and easily edit this content once posted;
- A calendar function allowing neighborhood offices to create Homebuyer Education and Foreclosure Prevention class evetns and other non-training event entries, all linked to a sign-up form;
- A sophisticated site registration system allowing users to enter comprehensive personal profile information so the client can best serve their needs;
- Several other key functionalities were also integrated.