Subsidy Project

Fernando Ochoa Abett de la Torre
Former Research Affiliate

Founder and principal investigator of Domus, a digital ecosystem developed within ConsiliumBots to help disadvantaged families navigate, apply for, and use housing subsidies more effectively. Domus was conceived as a scalable, evidence-based solution to reduce informational frictions in social benefit systems, integrating behavioral economics, data science, and artificial intelligence into a unified architecture. The project was developed in partnership with the Ministry of Housing of Chile (MINVU) and TOCTOC, the country’s largest housing search platform. Domus is a model of how research-driven technology can improve access to public programs and strengthen institutional capacity for evidence-based policymaking.

About
Domus > Subsidy Project

The Domus ecosystem is a technological solution designed to address the lack of information and the misuse of social benefits by equipping households with personalized tools to effectively navigate housing subsidies.

Government assistance programs intend to help disadvantaged households often suffer from low take-up rates due to a lack of awareness among eligible recipients. The complexity of benefit systems, with hundreds of programs and varying eligible recipients. The subsidies system is complex because there are many programs with different eligibility requirements. This complexity creates a challenge for the potencial beneficiares.

This project aims to offer a modular platform Domus which provides information about different program opportunities, personalized feedback, and new opportunities to utilize benefits effectively.

Existing platforms developed by government agencies and NGOs lack basic functionalities, leading to inefficient information dissemination and application processes.

Current Status & Collaborations

The Domus module has already been developed and is currently being used by initial users. The next step is to launch a pilot with TocToc, a Chilean housing marketplace with over X million users.

Partners