Why we built Blocks.

To everyone on the block,

When I started building Neighborhood Blocks, I kept trying to decide what it was. A technology company? Civic infrastructure? An art project? The honest answer is all three.

It’s a technology company. One scan opens the building: no app, no login, nothing new for the office to learn. Blocks is a layer on top of the systems a building already runs. It sends rent to the portal residents already use, repairs to the request form the office already trusts, and questions to the people who know the answers. It is built to repeat: the same page works for the next building, and the next city.

It’s an art project. Every building gets its own drawing, its own colors and a magnet worth keeping. We made it something people want to open: a word puzzle on the fridge every morning, a wall of the words neighbors love about where they live, postcards of the building to send a friend. Block by block, the city fills in with buildings people are proud to call home.

It’s civic infrastructure. In Tulsa County, more than 1,000 evictions are filed every month, and most of them started as one short month. Nobody wins an eviction: the resident loses a home, and the building loses rent and a turnover. Research has found that tenants are nearly universally lost when a notice arrives, too stressed and isolated to reach out, and that help works best early, through one simple front door, before anything is filed. So we build stability into the home itself. Every block carries Deco, a private way to real local help, on the fridge from move-in day. And Pulse counts every request once, with no names, so a city can see stress building and show up before the 1st does. We’re replacing Crisis → Paperwork → Help with Move-in → Connection → Prevention.

We’re starting in Tulsa, block by block. If you run a building, serve the people in one, or just want to grab a coffee, I’d love to hear from you.