Inside Project Picket: The student-led innovation tackling youth homelessness

The housing crisis looks different when you’re the one trying to fix it,  especially as a student. This Ten Minute Talk with Allison LaForgia uncovers how Diego Diaz, a BA/MBA candidate at Willamette University, turned alarming data on Oregon’s unsheltered child homelessness into a driving force behind his advocacy. His founding of the YIMBY Actions chapter in Salem marks a bold step toward reshaping a state hit hard by youth homelessness.

Diego shares the origins of Project Picket, the affordable housing app he built solo for a Hackathon. Designed to connect first-time homebuyers and leverage Oregon’s ADU reforms, Diego’s hoping to have his project backed by Columbia Bank and eventually achieve national expansion. His vision blends community benefit agreements, technology, and grassroots mobilization to create a scalable path to affordable housing.
Project Picket was the 2025 Hack-a-House winning project in the finance category.

The team:

The One Block Away team is the 2025 Grand Prize Winner of the Ivory Innovations 2025 Hack-A-House competition.