“For me, Housing First is about dignity. By offering people back a home that is really theirs, you give them so much more: freedom and autonomy, life chances, future, happiness”

I manage the S NÁMI DOMŮ project (WITH US HOME program), which has been operating since 2018 and meets all the conditions of Housing First for Youth. As part of the program, we provide housing for children leaving children’s homes and foster families and help them integrate into society.

Juha has been working for 10 years in the field of homelessness. He started as a frontline support worker in 2010 for the Finnish Youth housing association services (NALPA). NALPA offers housing first in scattered housing for young people experiencing homelessness. After 3,5 years Juha became the Service manager and his responsibility was to develop the services and manage the Housing First team. After 1,5 years of being the service manager Juha became the CEO of the whole company. Juha had the privilege of developing and growing the company to a widespread presence across Finland. Following NALPA, Juha started work at the Y-Foundation. He worked for a little over one year as a Coordinator for the  National Housing First Development Network. At the beginning of 2020, he became the Lead Coordinator of the same Network. As part of his role at the Network, Juha organises training courses at national level, and is working on developing the Housing First model together with dozens of NGO’s and cities.

Marlene is a project manager and team leader at neunerhaus Housing First in Vienna and a lecturer for Housing First at the Vienna University of Applied Sciences. Marlene previously worked as a social worker with young refugees and in the education sector.

Melanie Schmit’s entire working life has been about people in need, among which the biggest part has been in the field of homelessness. She studied social work, then completed a bachelor’s degree  in health care management and a study around professional coaching and leadership. Currently she is focusing on education around public affairs. Melanie started out as a social worker in a homelessness service and after that was a manager for several years, mainly managing and implementing Housing First practices for adults as well as youth. Today, Melanie works for LIMOR on scaling up, further developing, and promoting Housing First in the Northern and Western part of The Netherlands. In that capacity she is also training groups on Housing First inside and outside the organisation. Furthermore Melanie is president of the national platform, Housing First Netherlands. She was a co-initiator and co-founder of this network organization that acts as a collective representative for Housing First practices in the Netherlands and Housing First in general.

Mia is Coordinator for the National Housing First Development Network in Finland. She is passionate about eradicating homelessness and developing new ways of approaching housing-related issues. Mia has a backround in youth housing, social services & child protection services and is also experience in networking, providing training and a platform for learning about Housing First and housing related social work.

Development of associative project for more than 20 years. I have worked in the fields of culture, politics, sport/leisure and real estate. Investing 100% in HF4Y projects since 2021.

I started working in 2006 in a Halfway house Chamomile as a social worker and since the year 2013 an educator in a facility for children requiring immediate help in the same organization Chamomile. I did these two jobs at the same time until 2017. After that I started working as a social worker in an Asylum for families with children Hannah, where I worked for 3 years. In 2020, I started as a key social worker in the PORTAVITA Housing First for adults project, where I still work today. Supported persons are mainly single mothers with children, but also complete families. The second project Housing First for Adults is already running at the moment.