Minimizing army housing deficits with a decision support system-delivered heuristic programming model

The inefficient use of existing onpost, or available offpost, assets can result in insufficient or unnecessary Army housing construction requests. Insufficient requests can leave Army personnel inadequately housed, compromise morale and jeopardize military preparedness, while unnecessary requests can waste scarce natural resources and, in the process, alienate local residents, environmentalists and other interest groups. This paper: (a) presents a decision-support-system-delivered heuristic programming model that efficiently utilizes scarce housing resources; and (b) demonstrates the significant economic and management benefits that can be achieved through the application of the model. The same concepts can be applied to the housing allocation problem faced by the other armed services, federal, state, local housing authorities and to related resource allocation problems in public and private enterprises.