Robert Ambrogi Blog
Housing Court Answers, a nonprofit tenants’ rights organization in New York City, today launched Roxanne, a first-of-its-kind AI-powered tool created to help tenants navigate issues related to housing repairs.
Developed in partnership with New York University School of Law and the legal automation company Josef, the AI assistant helps renters in New York City learn about and enforce their rights.
The developers say it can provide tenants with actionable information on issues such as documenting repair problems, preparing letters to landlords, and filing a complaint with Housing Preservation & Development (HPD), New York’s agency that enforces building safety.
“With the launch of our AI assistant Roxanne, New York City renters can now get instant answers to all their rental repair questions,” said Jenny Laurie, executive director of Housing Court Answers. “Renting law and regulations in New York are notoriously complicated and hard to digest, so with Roxanne, we’ve made rental repairs guidance both easy to access and understand.”
The tool is built on Josef’s platform, Josef Q, which uses advanced AI to transform policies and regulations into digital Q&A tools. As I reported last month, Josef recently closed a rapid funding round to capitalize on market interest in its Josef Q product, which it brought out of beta in November 2023.
It draws on the expertise and experience of both HCA and NYU. Sateesh Nori, an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law, said the tool can help close the gap in serving New York tenants who need legal help.
“One of the biggest challenges of working as a legal services lawyer or a nonprofit lawyer is that you don’t have enough time, or resources, to help everybody who seeks your help,” Nori said.
In announcing today’s launch of Roxanne, HCA said tenants should continue to use its phone hotline for more complex legal issues, but that for guidance on housing repair issues, Roxanne should be able to provide the information they need.
Sam Flynn, cofounder and COO of Josef, said that the developers will continue to moderate and review the guidance that Roxanne provides to ensure its reliability, and will also continue to build out new modules to address more issues.
“LLMs give us the ability to really turn the tide on the access to justice gap, but we do need to make sure that we’re creating technology that’s not just efficient, but also safe,” Flynn said.
“Our tool only draws from trusted and validated sources, is extensively tested and trained prior to launch, and will continue to be updated and maintained thereafter.”