Know where a client can go, before dialling.
PLACER calls providers, turns conversations into data, and matches each vacancy against a worker’s caseload, without forcing providers to maintain another portal.
There are many homeless people in Victoria.
Frontline housing workers are responsible for matching clients with suitable accommodation, yet they often lack reliable, real time information about which providers have vacancies and whether those providers can meet a client's needs.
A social worker gets a client list and a provider list. Nothing else.
To place one client, a worker calls providers one by one to find out what is available, who they accept, what it costs, and what would rule the client out. This process is repetitive, slow, and takes time away from assessing and supporting clients.
Workflow figures from a direct frontline worker interview, September 2026. Provider names and call outcomes above are illustrative.
The same six steps, made easier, in one place.
Drawn from our 100 record synthetic caseload. Distributions are calibrated to AIHW Victorian aggregates; the individual is fictional.
The network already exists. The live information layer doesn’t.
Every point below is a real, publicly listed provider or access point we researched and recorded. Switch layers to see what changes when vacancy freshness is added on top.
Researched from public sources on 13 September 2026. This is not every homelessness service in Victoria — it is the set we have mapped and verified against published material.
Public service information tells us who a provider serves. It does not tell a worker what is available today.
Where eligibility information was not publicly stated, we recorded it as unknown rather than guessing.
Select any point on the map to read its record.
Matching is more than finding an empty bed.
A client is not simply “homeless”. Placement suitability depends on needs, eligibility and affordability, and those needs overlap.
Needs present across the 100 synthetic profiles - from real data
Synthetic profiles · AIHW-calibratedPercentages are counted directly from the supplied 100-record dataset (n = 100, so each count is also a percentage). The profiles are fictional; their distributions were calibrated against AIHW Specialist Homelessness Services aggregates for Victoria. Convictions, warrants, violence history and previous housing issues are scenario-only demo fields and are deliberately excluded here — no suitable public prevalence data exists for them.
Living arrangement
Household shape decides what kind of property is even possible. A single room cannot take a parent with three children, however free it is tonight.
Explainable, line by line.
No opaque score. Each criterion is compared, and each comparison is shown — including the ones the provider never answered.
Providers don’t need another portal.
Instead of relying on every accommodation provider to continuously log into and maintain another system, PLACER converts ordinary provider conversations into structured, time-stamped vacancy data.
Give frontline workers their time back.
Indicative annual labour capacity released, if each relevant worker saves 1.5 hours per working day. This represents worker time redirected from repetitive coordination to client-facing support; cash savings would depend on actual expenditure changes.
Fewer failed referrals
Workers can avoid preparing referrals for services that are full or clearly unsuitable.
Provider time
Fewer repetitive vacancy-check calls also reduce provider-side administration.
System planning
Aggregated vacancy, demand and rejection patterns can reveal where supply does not match demand.
Privacy
The demo contains no real client records.
De-identified calling
The voice agent shares eligibility requirements, not unnecessary identifying client information.
Disclosure
Automated calls begin with an automated-call disclosure.
Human decision
Workers remain responsible for reviewing and confirming the placement decision.
The system improves information and matching efficiency. It does not solve the underlying shortage of accommodation supply. AIHW reports that in 2024–25, 31% of clients nationally who needed short-term or emergency accommodation had that need neither provided nor referred.
The same matching layer applies wherever a worker has to ring around to find a place tonight.
Spend less time finding a vacancy. Spend more time helping the person.
Built in Melbourne for the Forward Hackathon, September 2026.