A Matching Mechanism for Provision of Housing to the Marginalized

TL;DR

This paper proposes a matching mechanism to improve the allocation of emergency housing to the homeless, aiming to maximize social welfare and reduce costs, especially highlighted during pandemic efforts like California's Roomkey.

Contribution

It introduces an automated matching mechanism that enhances current housing assignment methods by addressing supply-demand mismatches and reducing strategic manipulation.

Findings

Mechanism improves allocation efficiency

Reduces funding and personnel needs

Addresses strategic manipulation in housing assignments

Abstract

During this pandemic, there have been unprecedented community and local government efforts to slow down the spread of the coronavirus, and also to protect our local economies. One such effort is California's project Roomkey that provided emergency housing to over 2000 vulnerable persons but fell short of the set goal of 15,000. It is projected that the homelessness problem will only get worse after the pandemic. With that in mind, we borrow from efforts like project Roomkey and suggest a solution that looks to improve upon these efforts to efficiently assign housing to the unhoused in our communities. The pandemic, together with the project Roomkey, shed light on the underlying supply demand mismatch that presents an opportunity for a matching mechanism solution to assigning housing options to the unhoused in a way that maximizes social welfare and minimizes susceptibility to strategic manipulation. Additionally, we argue that this automated solution would cut down on the amount of funding and personnel required for the assignment of housing to unhoused persons. Our solution is not intended to replace current solutions to homeless housing assignments but rather improve upon them. We can not postpone a proper solution to homelessness anymore, the time is now as the need for an efficient solution is most dire.