Simulation optimisation for the housing of homeless populations.

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Government bodies around the world are responsible for housing which ensures that homeless people are not left unsheltered for extended periods of time and have access to good quality accommodation in the long run. To do this, they must balance the urgent requirements for emergency shelter with the long-term need for permanent housing, all within a limited budget. The flow of people through government homeless care systems can be modelled as a queue. Due to the complex nature of such queueing systems, simulation modelling plays a vital role in estimating the societal impact of housing development plans. Simulation models are good at capturing the complexities of the real-world system but using them to find an optimal development plan is difficult. This project aims to use novel simulation optimisation algorithms to find near-optimal development plans in the context of homeless care systems. These algorithms will use a mathematical description of the queue dynamics alongside a simulation model to efficiently explore different development options. The simulation model will rely on forecasts for future homelessness which are highly uncertain. The challenge here is to appropriately consider the impact of this uncertainty on the simulation output and on the optimisation results. A further challenge is the fact that housing development plans are typically revisited - to account for this in the context of simulation optimisation will be a novel development.In partnership with the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, US.