Bridge Housing Solutions: An AI prediction engine (utilising NLP and contextual scoring) to match social housing properties and reduce the need for temporary accommodation

目前的“生活成本危机”以及COVID -19大流行造成的失业增加了英国各地的房租拖欠和无家可归现象，有27.4万人无家可归，其中约25万人住在临时住所（84740户家庭）。然而，2021年英国危机研究显示，目前约有4.5万套社会住房空置。目前填补这些空置房屋的过程非常耗费时间和资源，这意味着尽管英国的无家可归者人数创下了纪录，但这些房屋中的大多数仍然空置。地方当局目前只能在被接受的无家可归者所在的行政区提供住宿，而不能提供其他住宿——这意味着如果目前没有可用的房产，那么服务使用者必须在临时住房之间转移，否则将面临无家可归（等待名单通常超过10年）。示例：服务用户在Brent的临时住宿区，正在一家民宿中等待安全且价格合理的住宿。哈罗议会（邻近的自治市镇）有一处空置的房产，因为哈罗没有人想要这块房产。那处房产将一直空置，直到市议会找到合适的买主。然而，目前有成千上万的家庭在伦敦的临时住所，他们将欢迎有机会重新安置到哈罗的房产中。目前还没有办法或流程使这些属性对英国的所有服务用户可用和可见。英国地方议会迫切需要一种解决方案，帮助服务用户找到辖区外可用的、或者空置的社会住房（要么通过邻近的辖区，要么通过家庭等其他有紧密联系的地区）。为了解决这一关键问题，My Social Housing正在开发一款应用程序，帮助用户根据个人标准找到自己的房产，比如离家人、工作地点、学校或其他因素近。这款应用将包含一个人工智能算法，根据应用交互和用户偏好匹配属性，自动列出合适的属性，并在可用时通知用户。该平台还将能够存储租约等文件，以便对整个过程进行全面管理。

The current 'cost-of-living crisis' along with job losses from the COVID -19 pandemic has increased rent arrears and homelessness across the UK with 274,000 people homeless and ~250,000 of these living in temporary accommodation (84,740 households). However a 2021 Crisis UK study shows that there are currently ~45,000 social housing properties that are currently vacant.The current process for filling these empty homes is vastly time and resource consuming, meaning that despite record homelessness in the UK, a majority of these home remain empty. Local authorities currently can only offer accommodation in the borough where they are an accepted homeless case and nothing else -- meaning if no properties are currently available then service users must move between temporary housing or face homelessness (waiting lists are often over 10 years).Example: A service user is in Brent in Temporary Accommodation and is waiting in a B&B for secure and affordable accommodation. There is a void property in Harrow Council (neighbouring borough) that is vacant as no one from Harrow wanted the property. That property will sit vacant until the council can find someone for it. However, there are thousands of families currently in Temporary Accommodation in London, that would welcome the opportunity to be re-housed into a property in Harrow.There is no current way or process to make these properties available and visible to all service users in the UK. UK councils are in desperate need of a solution to help match service users with available and otherwise empty social homes from outside their borough (either through a neighbouring borough or to another area with strong links such as family).In order to address this critical issue, My Social Housing are developing an app that helps users find their own properties based on their individual criteria, such as location near family, work, school or other factors. The app will contain an AI algorithm to match properties based on app interaction and user preferences, automatically shortlisting suitable properties and notifying users when available. The platform will also be able to store documentation such as tenancies so the process can be fully managed.