Case Study: Ensuring the right services go in the right place
Challenge
Women’s Community Shelters (WCS) was considering strategic expansion of their shelter network within NSW and interstate. The WCS operating model relies on community capacity building, local leadership and fundraising. It is thus critical that new shelters are in places where both demand for crisis accommodation and community suitability are high.
Solution
By integrating 20+ data sets such as domestic violence, volunteering, and charitable giving rates we were able to understand the geographic distribution of:
- Family and domestic violence related demand for homelessness services
- General (not violence related) demand for homelessness services
- Community suitability
- Other contextual information such as the political landscape
We combined all these data sets in an interactive tool that allowed WCS to scenario plan and change weightings of different metrics to understand the highest opportunity Local Government Areas.
Result
WCS is using the tool to maximise their impact and make data-driven decisions about where new shelters should be located. The tool is also being used to help WCS respond to government tenders and grant opportunities.
“I have been both surprised and delighted by how we can use the tool to tweak potential locations and to use that to think about how we could adjust our model to work in different locations.”
Annabelle Daniel, OAM, CEO, Women’s Community Shelters