United KingdomPublic sector2025 – ongoing

London Borough of Newham

DOMUS temporary-accommodation placement assistant

Newham's DOMUS trial reduced property matching to under 1 minute in a simulation

In progressCompany's own claim

Problem

Housing officers had to match households with scarce rental properties while applying affordability and suitability requirements. Manual searches took hours.

Approach

The University of East London and Newham developed DOMUS with rule-based filters and Claude-assisted search. Officers tested it in early 2025 using anonymised household records and real listings inside the council's secure environment. They reviewed ranked matches and explanations.

Results

under 1 minuteaverage matching time in the pilot, versus approximately 2–3 hours manually, reported by the development teamCompany's own claim[1]

Takeaway

The reported gains came from a simulation and early trials. They did not establish shorter accommodation stays or lower housing expenditure.

Sources

Optimising Temporary Accommodation Placement Across London with AI-Powered SaaS in E-Governance Systems
arXiv15 Jun 2026Research paper or report

Source summaries

[1]arXiv15 Jun 2026

The development team's paper included a Newham coauthor. It reported faster matching in an early pilot and described a further beta pilot as future work.

Full details are in the original sources.

Added 1 Nov 2026 · Updated 1 Nov 2026