We're incredibly excited to announce the first MoveSmart.org tool/widget: the 'MoveSmart this page' button. Drop it into your blog or website and provide visitors with links to opportunity maps of any geographies mentioned on the page that also appear on MoveSmart.org. This currently includes more than 500 places across 7 counties - zip codes, municipalities, neighborhoods, and community areas across Chicagoland; see a complete list of non-zip code geographies on MoveSmart.org.

There will be multiple versions of the button, and today we're just launching just the first. The first version will automatically disappear when there are no results; the second version will always display and expand to say "no results could be found".

Grab the embed code here (disappears on no results):
Or here (always displays, returns 'no results'):

We'll be adding more places, such as police beats, wards, more municipalities, and any other geography you request (and we can find data about) in the coming weeks. Comments and feedback are strongly encouraged.

Many thanks to volunteer developer Eric Cooper and lead developer Bec White, who managed to throw this together in record time, and designer Cece Yu, who made it look awesome.

Disclaimer: this is a brand-new feature and you may find a bug or two; please let us know if you have any troubles.

As the entire federal bureaucracy begins to use new media and share data under the direction of the White House's new Open Government Initiative, the National Fair Housing Alliance, MoveSmart.org, and the Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance urge HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) to utilize media and technology more effectively.

Housing discrimination practices have evolved as technology has evolved.  By way of example, real estate agents and landlords use the internet to advertise available housing and often include discriminatory terms that illegally make this housing unavailable to members of the protected classes.  The federal government and civil rights advocates must respond by also using technology to identify these practices in order to open these closed doors.  The web offers many tools to help eradicate the more than estimated 4 million annual incidents of housing discrimination and as important, offers tools that can be used to effectively promote healthy diverse neighborhoods.

While the White House is taking the lead on data transparency and “gov 2.0,” new HUD leadership is beginning to address its long-ignored obligation to "affirmatively further fair housing."  New and innovative uses of technology provide HUD with one type of common-sense tool to meet this mandate in the 21st century.  Technology can be used to advance transparency and accountability of HUD programs, to increase public participation in decision-making processes concerning regional equity, to better inform the public about housing opportunities, and to strengthen cooperative relationships between HUD and its grantees.  Below, we offer eleven recommendations on how FHEO can harness these new tools to affirmatively further fair housing, end discrimination in housing, better serve victims of discrimination, and promote residential integration. At the end of each is a link to the "HUD Ideas in Action Forum" where you can vote to register your support for that recommendation with HUD.

At a lunch in Chicago this fall, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government Beth Noveck encouraged a group of civic sector techies to make recommendations about open government and data transparency for various bureacracies. Noveck referenced the recently issued White House Open Government Directive (for more see the excellent analysis by TechPresident), and noted that they were interested in organizations pledging what they would build / do if the government did __blank__.

Since he took office this spring, I've had the privelege to see Asst. Sec. for Fair Housing John Trasviña speak a number of times. On every occassion he references the importance of taking fair housing "online", but to date his comments have focused on enforcement activities his office might take.

In response to this call and because we believe that there are a number of non-enforcement tech opportunities for HUD in general and Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity in particular, MoveSmart.org has been working with two large fair housing organizations to craft a set of tech recommendations for HUD and their office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO). While they're not ready for release just yet, the Directive's aggressive time frame and our holiday plans compel us to give you a sneak peek.

As 2009 draws to a close, we wanted to update you on our progress, thank you for your support, and encourage you to get involved with MoveSmart.org.

When this year started, MoveSmart.org was just a simple blog about a website we hoped to build. In the spring we partnered with the Chicago Technology Cooperative to offer a fellowship to Rebecca White to start work in earnest on the site. The first iteration of the current site launched in May. At the time, it was just the blog and a tiny Guides section - although by August of this year the Guides would expand to include nearly 80 articles on a wide array of topics.

The summer brought great news - we received a $10,000 outright grant and $10,000 challenge grant from the Field Foundation. This funding enabled us to bring Rebecca on half time in August and get the Neighborhood Finder system up-and-running in early November. Since then, our progress has continued to accelerate; we have been launching new features and data sets on an almost weekly basis while at the same time raising funds for the challenge grant (check out our Twitter stream for the play-by-play).