The local government’s continuous support is critical for the well-being of a community during disaster events. E-Government systems that establish and maintain ongoing connections with the community thus play a vital role in supporting crisis response and recovery. Such systems’ ability to adapt to the crisis circumstances and to address emergent needs helps them continue their fundamental functions during disasters. Considering various services might require different amounts and types of resources, prioritization strategies are helpful in determining the processing order of requests. This paper discusses the role of prioritizing services within an e-Government system, to better understand how such a system can be managed to best utilize available resources. The study examines how a well-functioning e-Government system, the Orange County, Florida 311 non-emergency service system, responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and how the changes in service operations requirements can affect service provision, specifically with respect to assigning or re-assigning priority levels.
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"Discrete Event Simulation to Evaluate Shelter Capacity Expansion Options for LGBTQ+ Homeless Youth
The New York City (NYC) youth shelter system provides housing, counseling, and other support services to runaway and homeless youth and young adults (RHY). These resources reduce RHY's vulnerability to human trafficking, yet most shelters are unable to meet demand. This paper presents a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model of a crisis-emergency and drop-in center for LGBTQ+ youth in NYC, which aims to analyze the current operations and test potential capacity expansion interventions. The model uses data from publicly available resources and interviews with service providers and key stakeholders. The simulated shelter has 66 crisis-emergency beds, offers five different support services, and serves on average 1,399 LGBTQ+ RHY per year. The capacity expansion interventions examined in this paper are adding crisis-emergency beds and psychiatric therapists. This application of DES serves as a tool to communicate with policymakers, funders, and service providers-potentially having a strong humanitarian impact.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1935602
- PAR ID:
- 10481289
- Publisher / Repository:
- IEEE
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings Winter Simulation Conference
- ISSN:
- 0891-7736
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Singapore
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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