First developed in the US, the initiative known as Housing First, is being adopted increasingly in Europe. Unlike traditional approaches, it doesn’t require individuals to meet certain criteria before receiving housing assistance. The idea is that homeless individuals have a higher chance of creating a brighter future for themselves if they first have a roof over their heads.
Carlos Martínez Carrasco lived rough for several years before a Housing First initiative provided him with a flat on the outskirts of Madrid.
He told Real Economy that the flat has changed his life in every way: “I no longer lack the things that you do when you’re on the street and I can cook. I don’t have to find a way to wash clothes… I can go out with the peace of mind that I have a place to come back to. I am very happy today.”
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In this episode of Real Economy, Euronews Reporter Paul Hackett discovers how providing the homeless with housing as a starting point rather than an end goal, is transforming lives and fast becoming a long-term solution.
Carlos Martínez Carrasco lived rough for several years before a Housing First initiative provided him with a flat on the outskirts of Madrid.
Two NGOs, Provivienda and Hogar Si, co-manage several Housing First initiatives in Spain, including the one that gave Carlos a home in Madrid.
Every EU member state has committed to spend at least 25% of its ESF+ resources on tackling social inclusion and at least 3% on addressing material deprivation.
The European Platform on Combating Homelessness is also working hard to bring about change while the Housing First Europe Hub, established in 2016 by Finland’s Y-Foundation and FEANTSA, seeks to give every person living on the street a home.
Progress in the current economic context won’t be easy, but evidence shows with the right policies and incentives, change is possible.
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This will never work. When they just give houses to people who are homeless how will we know who’s homeless and who isn’t.
/s this is great. I wish the US Would follow suit.
I was furious at you for a brief moment, haha.
Every time a town in the states does this or a city or a country anywhere, it works.
people have the few weeks of time they need to regularly clean themselves and get a job which leads to income coming in, and they can get transportation which provides opportunity, and so on and so forth.
I love it every time I hear about a housing solution working because they finally stripped away all the b******* and just gave people houses.
That helps for the homeless who are people that are just down on their luck, but it won’t solve the issue for those who are chronically homeless due to mental illness and/or drugs.
Idk what the statistics are for Europe, but 60-80% of the chronically homeless in the US fall into that category.
Homelessness is a very complex issue, and while it gets better if housing is provided, it won’t solve the issue.
That’s true, but it will give even them an important baseline improvement. You aren’t fixing all their problems but you’re fixing a huge problem that all of them have
The number of addicted people or people with mental health issues is closer to 30%, it might seem higher to you because you notice those people more.
Things get much better if housing is provided since most people just don’t have a home, so let’s start there.
It depends on which EU country you’re talking about, the ones that provide support for addicts reduce their addicted population, the ones that provide housing reduce their homeless population, the ones that provide mental health services reduce their mentally ill population.
Just like in the US, and everywhere else these programs are implemented.
UBI and comprehensive social support are the obvious solutions to most of these problems, and a historically work, so I take every new properly made social program as a success, especially if they are continued after they prove their worth.
It is only applied in a very limited amount of states or even cities in the US. Meanwhile there is many more that just criminalize homleseness, make public spaces more difficult for homeless people to exist in and all the while make it easier for landlords to kick tenants out or raise rent into absurdity and then kick them out.
My concern would be that individuals would abuse the provided homes and either trash them completely, or use them as a trap house. There’d have to be some kind of rules.
Edit: see below, people who have never spent time around homeless communities
No, there really don’t have to be. Even letting them trash the place is still better for society overall than any other strategy we’ve tried.
Let me be clear about that:
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FYI, the subset of homeless people who would trash the place is relatively small to begin with. Contrary to the stereotypes, most homeless people really are decent people down on their luck, not assholes who want to wreck shit for the lolz.
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When I say “still better” I don’t mean better for the assholes, I mean better for everybody else. Giving them housing and then letting them wreck it is actually cheaper than spending a bunch of money screening them out and then leaving them on the street to do crimes or whatever.
The subset of homeless people who would trash the place is relatively small to begin with.
On one hand I agree with this idea, on the other hand, people who are chronically homeless-not just for a short period of time-typically have a reason. Addiction, mental illness, whatever have you.
On the second point, the building needs to be maintained. You can’t just let people destroy because it costs not only them, but anyone who comes after them trying to use the same resources.
I agree that housing the homeless is kind of the no brainer answer, but there is a very real, very damaging subset of homeless populations that will take extreme advantage of and ruin public services for everyone else.
I don’t have a good answer to that, but dumping public money into housing, giving it ti the homeless, then finding that it’s turned into a cesspool because of allowing any sort of behavior or treatment of the property isn’t gonna fly- definitely not with the public anyway
On one hand I agree with this idea, on the other hand, people who are chronically homeless-not just for a short period of time-typically have a reason. Addiction, mental illness, whatever have you.
Yeah, and…?
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It’s not worth the cost (in terms of social worker manpower etc.) to try to separate them out from the non-chronically homeless on the front end.
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“Housing first” is not “housing only.” Getting them into housing makes them a lot easier to reach with addiction treatment or psychiatric help or whatever.
Regarding the rest of your comment, you seem to be under the impression that all these homeless people would be concentrated together in shitty housing projects, which isn’t really how it works anymore. In the 21st century, we’re talking about placing people into mixed-income housing, where all the neighbors paying market rate set a good example and the peer pressure is directed towards improvement instead of wallowing in poverty.
it’s not as simple as just giving them all houses… there would have to be social workers involved… transition type helpers and different types of housing…
but, believe it or not, most homeless people aren’t hard drug users
believe it or not, most homeless people aren’t hard drug users
But a lot of chronic hard drug users are homeless.
All I’m saying is I agree it’s not simple, and there would need to be a system in place to mitigate those complexities. These are the types of concerns that voters on these projects would have.
Do you think it is easier to adress drug abuse, when people on top of it lack a home and the basic safety and comfort it provides?
Most chronically homeless are though. Somewhere around 80% in the US. Although a lot of that is self medication for mental illness.
that is very incorrect…
p.s. most chronically homeless people don’t ever go to homeless shelters
I’ve often thought of this too. I think I read that most homeless have underlying issues that aren’t financial (although with rent hikes…).
My initial thought would be dorm style apartments with varying levels of support at the building depending on the severity of issues.
That’s what’s rough about working with homeless populations. You want to save everyone, but sometimes trying to help one individual who doesn’t want help subtracts from helping the four that do.
I’m getting downvoted by people who haven’t had to work in and around shelters before I’m assuming, because it’s a very real issue and is the cause of a lot of the negative perception of homelessness.
There was a project in my town where the city build a bunch of cabins on an otherwise unused lot of public land close to but separate from the city.
It was mostly junkies who ended up there. Now, instead of sending cops, the city send social workers to check up on them. The point was to give them a safe place and get in contact with them so at least those who were willing could be sorted out.
The homeless people who weren’t junkies didn’t go there, because they disliked that whole thing and mostly wanted to be left alone.
So the city opened a hotel where anyone can check in for a night free of charge. There were two rules. No drugs and no questions asked. Again there are social workers available for anyone who do want to talk about why they checked in. It’s mostly homeless people and boozers who go there. They run a café too, so if the users wanted breakfast they could go there and that’s were the connection was really made. People talk over breakfast. The café is run mostly by ex-alcoholics, who themselves use it as a step out of the bad habits, but who can also get in touch with those who don’t want to talk to the social workers.
Anyway, I’m not sure if the success is measurable in any way but at least all the homeless and junkies are offered a roof when it rains and someone to talk to if they want. Leaving the problem on street solves absolutely nothing.
So junkies get a house, everyone else maybe gets a hotel room?
That doesn’t sound like success.
The cabins were just log cabins with no electricity or water. They had a shared port-a-potty outside. They seem to be gone now when I look at google maps.
The hotel still exists, and the rooms are singular beds and a table. I think our prison cells are better.
Anyway, the point is that there’s no reason not to offer a bare minimum for the homeless people, because it helps you help them help you getting them off the streets.
In my city, all the people who are too problematic for the social housing get sent to this compound near the airport. So, they get to do their drunken shouting away from residential/commercial areas.
It’s kinda like a gated community with social workers and police on standby. Doesn’t work for every case but it seems perfect for a lot of the folks who end up there.
Society always pay for the homeless, regardless if the homeless are given homes or not.
Don’t give them homes … society gets to pay for more policing, more security, more judicial, more emergency health, more social problems.
Give them homes … No it doesn’t create a Utopia but with the money saved in less policing, less security, less judicial, less emergency health, the savings are used to pay for a home.
So go ahead be a right winger or a left winger, no matter how you cut it, we all pay for the homeless no matter what we do. It’s just that one solution is compassionate and one is not.
If you want to argue the Christian way, than …
‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”
- Matthew 25:40
I’m a leftist because I’m a fiscal conservative. It doesn’t take compassion (which is just as well, because frankly I’m not all that compassionate); it just takes not being so vindictive that you want to pay extra to persecute the poor to keep them down on purpose.
You can apply the same view to e.g. healthcare. It is a lot cheaper to pay for preventative healthcare for everyone than to deal with health issues once they get to the point where they become unbearable.
Some people dont have homes. Give them homes. Everyone has homes🤯🤯🤯
