  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.
