  Germany has witnessed an influx of forced migrants in recent years. Promoting
social interaction with the local community is key to supporting the
resettlement of these newcomers. Location-based freecycling services present
important benefits due to freecycling's potential to bolster social engagement
and location-based services' ability to adapt to the user's context. Yet, their
potential to support forced migrants' resettlement is yet to be examined. We
conducted needs assessment interviews with 11 participants in Muenster,
Germany. We analyzed the interview results to develop user requirements for
location-based freecycling services. We then implemented a subset of the user
requirements as a prototype mobile app called Geofreebie. The evaluation of the
app with 22 participants showed that Geofreebie offered two key advantages for
forced migrants' resettlement: it increased the size of their social network,
and created a sense of community on their side. These findings can benefit
researchers and developers of location-based services to support forced migrant
resettlement.
