Tyrone Poole, founder of OneApp, has a story to tell - going from the top of his firefighter class to homeless a year later to now a successful software entrepreneur and Portland's brightest hope to make a dent in our homeless crisis. Tyrone shattered his leg in a firefighter training exercise and spent nearly a year in a hospital, racking up personal debt and defaulting on rent payments and his car getting repossessed. Getting out of the hospital was a rude awakening with no car and no home to go to. Still on crutches, job prospects were slim. Tyrone was couch surfing at family and friends houses - trying to be invisible and out of the way. After 3 months, he was out of favors and on the streets, homeless.
The cops drove him to a homeless shelter and the Exec Director vouched for him to get 100% government assistance to pay rent for a year. Even with that, he got denied from dozens of vacant apartments because of his eviction + credit history. That gave Tyrone the idea to start OneApp, which is now rapidly transforming from a free rental application website and mobile app to be the only app that can be used to stay in compliance with Portland, Oregon and Minnesota’s new FAIR housing laws that take effect in just a few months. This means Tyrone has to scale a software team, negotiate with elected officials and landlords, fundraise $1M from investors, AND raise 5 young girls with his amazing wife. No problem, right?