Housing for the Homeless? Not Yet First!

EUROPEAN RESEARCH CONFERENCE
Housing First. What’s Second?
Berlin, 20th September 2013
Housing for the homeless?
Not yet first…
Julia Wygnańska, Research&Advocacy
Camilian Mission for Social Assistance
www.misja.com.pl
Warsaw, Poland
Insert your logo here

Hold your horses!
 Title of this Conference calls for immediate reaction: Housing first?
WHERE? Isn’t asking for second stage premature? Are we not too
quick?
 Audience of Final Conference of Housing First Europe in
Amsterdam, June 2013 might have heard we test housing first
projects in Poland in two places. Here they are in national context:
1. Who is considered homeless?
2. What services are provided
3. The nature of social work
4. Measuring effectiveness
5. Two HF projects mentioned in Amsterdam

1. Policy: to whom it is (not) addressed?
Official scale of homelessness (headcounts):
 Housing and Population Census 2011: (ETHOS 1,11=9789; 2,3,4=15948)
 Ministerial Headcount 2013: ETHOS 1,11= 8554; 2,3,4=22158; Warsaw 1,11=
431 (people in temporary/supported housing counted as „usamodzielnieni”=not
homeless any more)
 People in public space in Warsaw – alternative data:
 DOM Fundation 2012 – 410 clients in few districts of whom 70% declared current
place of stay ETHOS 1,11 (public space, unconventional dwelling)
 CMSA Research 2012 – about 140 clients of streetowrker in two districts over 6
months (long term homeless, possible mental/social disorders, long term
alcoholics, many times rejected from shelters/removed from shelters.)
 http://www.misja.com.pl/living-in-public-space-in-warsaw-street-work-by-
camilian-mission-for-social-assistance/
And the rest (uncounted):
 People addicted to drugs – they stay in facilities for drug addicted people not for the
homeless.
 Living with family and friends, temporary/seasonal work rooms
 People on the margins of homelessness (Loss of housing safety due to conflict in a
family/financial problems; Evictions, re-possession orders)
 Young people (leaving care – we know about successful ones)

2. Range of services
 Prevailing:
 Warming-ups, food distribution, nightshleters, shelters, long term homes,
social work, community homes (Barka, Emaus, Chleb Życie), advice and
information
 Existing (there are some):
 supported/training appartments (1300 people in them according to Ministerial
Count 2012) (by-laws include sobriety, control of social worker, income level and
other), streetworking, social economy
 Lacking:
 Personal Advocacy, mental health and post traumatic services, prevention –
immediate intervention in crisis sitautions experienced by well functioning people
(single mom - Gdańsk). Welfare only to the poorest.
 System:
 Employment led staircase model; apartment as a reward for graduating from
the shelter;

3. (Specific) Quality of „social work”
 Comparison of support system for the homeless to war/field hospital where
the surgeon has to quickly decide who should be operated and who is left to
die. Prognosis has to be made on who has a chance to exit homelessness
and be therefore supported by more advanced services (like housing) and
who is hopeless and should be left to his fate in public space, night shelters
and sobering up stations.
 Low effectiveness of social work interpreted as a fault/choice of supported
person not as inadequacy of support.
 Emotional problems of people who help others (lack of supervision, short
and inadequate education, specific recruitment to „profession of helping”,
lack of reflection on impact of one’s own limitations on relationship of
helping); social help as „social violence”;
 In self-help groups where staff recruits from former clients: „I was able to
stop my problems so should you (e.g. drinking as a choice)”
 By-laws and contracts to meet them as major tools for „motivating” clients.
Lack of knowledge on how to work on internal self motivation, self-steering.

4. Measuring effectivness
 „We are ngos, we work in gaps, we volunteer, we have low salaries
so everything we do is a blessing and is good a priori.”
 Major criteria: „administrative” correctness
 Prevalance of performance measures
 Lack of indicatiors of effectiveness/benefits of basic services
 Lack of cost and benefit analysis of exisiting services
 Lack of need to measure effectiveness…

5. HF programs
 Context of GSWB systemic project – „Model of standardised
services” drafted by ngo experts put under test by pilot
implementations on local level in 19 communities. Standardised
services include forms of shelter/housing for the homeless. 100%
EU funded.
 In GSWB Model HF is declared as one of alternative general rules
(paradigm) for the system (next to staircase model, patette model
and community model) but range of services/programmes does not
include HF programmes. Housing first described as unconditional
housing for every homeless person.

5 cd. Housing first examples
 Nowe
 1 person chosen based on three criteria: high institutinal costs, causing high
social problems, having prospects for income
 Criteria for holding the apt: monthly payments, cooperation with social workers
and staff
 Kielce, Pomost Fundation
 6 people of 50 who applied (many not homeless, wanted to improve housing
situation), (no long term rough sleepers with multiple needs)
 major criteria for selection: difficult housing situation, no analysis of past housing
situations eg. rough sleeping, shelter rejections, etc.; no analysis of
psychological profile
 no criteria for clients eg. indywidual programme for getting out of homelessness,
employment, etc., no by-law,
 Support: job advisor, family assistant, psychologist, coordinator
 GSWB Evaluation („Scientific Audit”): no information on effectiveness of
implementation of HF by local partnerships; staircase model got better opinions but
report provides no conclusions.

Context - conclusions
 Population of people experiencing homelessness and housing
exclusion researched partially – we do not have full picture, we
shape our thinking/programms/policies on fragmented data
 Still basic service is a roof/soup not home and
psychological/therapeutic support
 Social work – by-law/contracts as major tool for motivation, lack of
neccessary qualifications of people helping others
 Unknown effectivness (and cost effectiveness) of existing services
 HF – maybe 20 people in PL do understand the idea - for general
audience HF remains out of the blue:
 Do we want to have HF because it is a sophisticated and fancy
programme which is trendy in Europe? Or do we really want it
because we want to put people first and do what they tell us they
need?

Questions?
 How imaginative should (European conferences shaping) policy
goals be? Is there anything to loose by delibarating on what is
second while first does not exist?
 What do we know about homelessness in national contexts
(anegdotal observation?)
 Pathways for policy development – shall we hope to jump over some
stages (improving shelter system) and move directly to most
advanced ideas (Housing First as paradigm fed with HF
programmes)? How can that be done?
 Researching vs implementing?
 Any project that supports people in critical housing situation is great. … Why we
need to analyse them if they are or they are not HF or anything else?
 Do we really get that much from (policy oriented) research?
 It is good we have tested hf - 7 people were supported. Kropka

CMSA Plans
 CMSA offered Municipality of Warsaw cooperation in
implementation of HF programme for 15 people living in public
space in Warsaw looking forward to new EU Financial Perspective
2014-2020 and engagement of local government.
 CMSA continues to research costs of living in public space to gather
pro-Housing First data.
 In 2012 CMSA adopted The Advocacy Strategy based on three
pillars: research, netowrking and transparency. Long term goal:
creating pro HF dynamics in PL

www.misja.com.pl

Biblio
 Cieplak, Wygnańska (2012) Akceptacja kluczem do zmiany. Streetworking w
Kamiliańskiej Misji Pomocy Społecznej KMPS, Warszawa, In English:
http://www.misja.com.pl/living-in-public-space-in-warsaw-street-work-by-camilian-
mission-for-social-assistance/
 GSWB (2012) „Model GSWB” http://www.pfwb.org.pl/wp-
content/uploads/2012/11/pfwb_model_gswb_www.pdf
 GUS (2012) Narodowy Spis Powszechny Ludności i Mieszkań 2011. Raport z
wyników, GUS, Warszawa
 MPiPS (2013) Sprawozdanie z realizacji działań na rzecz ludzi bezdomnych w
województwach w 2012 roku oraz wyniki ogólnopolskiego badania liczby osób
bezdomnych 7/8 lutego 2013, Materiał informacyjny, Warszawa
 Wygnańska, (2012) Mieszkańcy warszawskich pustostanów, działek i śmietników –
beneficjenci Fundacji D.O.M., Fundacja D.O.M., Warszawa
 Wygnańska (2013) Ekspertyza merytoryczna Modelu Gminny Standard Wychodzenia
z Bezdomności na zlecenie Caritas Diecezji Kieleckiej pt. „Model GSWB – opis
rzeczywistości zastanej vs projekt przyszłej polityki społecznej”, CARITAS Kielecka
 Information on pilot implementation of HF received via emails from Wojciech
Kuziemski from Local GSWB Partnership in Nowe, and Krzysztof Nowak from Local
GSWB Partnership in Kielce.

Housing for the Homeless? Not Yet First!

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