Homelessness and technology, a new approach.

Homelessness – A new approach.

 I always thought think tanks were a gang of older men who got together to talk politics and the likes over a cigar and a whisky in a gentleman’s club. I am now getting to be one of those ‘older men’ but I have to admit my thinking is rather more chaotic in nature than the no doubt many rules applied in the old school tie set up. I was once told I am too disruptive in my thinking to be an executive or a leader in business. This was from a respected coach. Oh well, I guess everyone has a bad day. The point is that you can be a leader and successful by thinking differently.

Back to that word chaotic. I have a real interest in systems (not just IT systems) but all systems thinking. This led me to something I got really interested in some years ago and that was Chaos Theory.

I can hear you asking: ‘Where the hell is he going with this? It started with homelessness and now he’s talking like a mad scientist’. Please bear with me.

You see; Chaos Theory focuses (via mathematics) on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of ‘systems’ that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and once were thought to be completely random…..but the point is, perhaps they are not. Perhaps there is not madness in chaos but structure and even more importantly, predictability itself.

Now, quick Segway to homelessness. There is some thinking that you cannot predict homelessness too easily and it is all rather complex, with many individual and societal factors at play. You just can’t predict it! Or can you? I’ll come back to that a little later.

By chaotic I also mean thinking more creatively and not being stifled by boring old business talk.

By chaotic I mean anything goes until ruled out by insanity. Why not try? Why not dream?

By chaotic I mean disruption and not being frightened of invention and innovation.

So, chaos need not be a banned word in the business world, but when embraced and controlled can be incredibly powerful.

Ok. I mentioned I would come back to the prediction of homelessness.  I have heard terrible things said about homelessness over the years. Things like:

• They brought it on themselves with their drug habits.
• They deserve to be homeless living like that.
• Nobody liked them anyway. (really – I have heard this)

 And more recently from the ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman of all people that "We cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice."

 All of the above and no matter many more impressions on homeless folks give an impression that it is very much something that just happens and on occasion you just can’t predict it. It’s all a bit difficult.

I simply do not agree.

You can predict it, and you can use science and technology to do so.

If you don’t believe me, look at an example from London (Not the English city, but the one in Ontario).

A recently introduced model uses AI and data-driven technology to predict whether individuals are at risk of becoming chronically homeless up to 6 months in the future. This allows shelters and prevention services to support at-risk individuals more effectively. It also could save the city millions of dollars each year. But the really exciting part is that they are making their model available for any government (region) in Canada to use by an open-source model.

You can read more about this exciting project here, but one other quick thing that excites me personally is what is termed explainable AI. This not only gives you the prediction — the probability of someone becoming chronically homeless, but then gives you the reason why. What features and fields and demographic attributes the model is relying on to make its prediction. This is useful for transparency and auditability and building trust with caseworkers and shelter heads. 

Isn’t this a great example. But hold on, can you imagine the UK doing this? Can you imagine a council or a government coming up with such a model and then sharing it across other councils, regions. Actually, is anyone doing it here at all? Is anyone looking seriously at homeless predictions and an explainable model? Please someone let me know. Would love to see examples.

Most of the folks reading this will know my belief that well designed and implemented technology can benefit housing and society as a whole, so it is this reason, including the basic points made in this small article that I am building a new and exciting homelessness think tank to look at the chaos, to look at the art of the possible, to seek out new worlds and civilisations that do not have a homeless problem (ok, I got carried away there).

It’s rather simple folks, we need to be creative, we need to embrace new and innovative thinking and we need to stop the old men and their cigars pretending this is not a situation that will go away with the next government.