Today, the Long Beach Post launched //Hub, a space for you to connect with your neighbors, pool resources, ask for help if you need it and offer help if you can.

As we all navigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the most important thing is that we support our community. Those of us with healthy immune systems can assist our neighbors with compromised immune systems. Neighborhoods can pool resources so we make sure everyone has enough to get by. Those who still have paychecks can buy groceries, pick up prescriptions, offer to walk our neighbor’s dogs or do anything else that would make it easier for folks to stay inside.

Here’s how it works: Head over to hub.lbpost.com and create a username and password by clicking “Login / Register” on the top right of this page. You’ll need to click the verify link sent to your email address before you can post.

If you look on the right of the page on desktop, or on the mobile menu at the top left if you’re on a mobile device, you’ll see a list of neighborhoods. Some are active, some are marked as [UNCLAIMED].

The idea is to connect neighbors in need with those who can help, so if your neighborhood is active, that will be where most of your posts should go, though anyone is welcome to post in //Citywide with general topics or requests.

If your neighborhood has not been claimed yet, and you’d like to become your neighborhood’s leader, you can claim that space by clicking the name of your neighborhood and filling in the moderator agreement.

You’ll become the moderator of your newly-created neighborhood space.

You can also create custom “neighborhoods” for your street, block, building, school, church or other organization by scrolling to the bottom of the neighborhood list and hitting “+create a new neighborhood“. Then just fill in the moderator agreement and give your new neighborhood a unique name.

If you’re posting a request for help either in a neighborhood or in //Citywide, start your post with [NEED]. If you’re offering help, start your post with [ABLE TO HELP].

To the right of the title of your post, you’ll see some categories. Please mark your posts with the appropriate category to help keep things organized. You may post to more than one neighborhood (such as if you are a business and your service area extends beyond your immediate neighborhood), but please do not spam.

Other than that, it’s up to your neighborhood leader to set any neighborhood-specific rules as they see fit, to make this as useful as possible for you and your community.

You can also download this flyer template to leave at your neighbors’ doors to tell them about your //Hub forum. If you don’t have access to a printer, enlist some help and re-create it with paper and markers!

Like many of our projects here, this was rapidly developed and released to get it into your hands faster, so things will change, there will probably be bugs and it’ll be missing features you wish it had. We’re working on it as we go, but you can always email [email protected] if you need help or want to make a suggestion and we’ll do whatever we can.

In the meantime, take care of yourself, and each other.