Housing First Berlin (HFB) is a partnership project of the non-profit organizations Neue Chance gGmbH and Berliner Stadtmission. It has been financed as a model project by the social department of the city of Berlin since 2018. It curently counts eight staff members, with different qualifications, and around 40 participants housed in their own flats. HFB is expecting a significant expansion of the project starting in 2022.
Neue Chance gGmbH was founded in May 2010 by the Diakonisches Werk Berlin-Brandenburg-Schlesische Oberlausitz e.V., and has been a subsidiary of GEBEWO – Social Services – Berlin gGmbH since October 2010. Neue Chance provides different social services for adults, young people and families in the legal areas of SGB VIII and SGB XII – from shelters and low threshold counseling to assisted living – with approximately 400 flats. Their motto is: “We give always everything to give everybody a new chance.”
The Berliner Stadtmission is part of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Schlesische Oberlausitz (EKBO). Under the motto “Seek the best for the city and pray to the Lord for it” (Jeremiah 29: 7), it has been involved in various ways for people in need since its foundation in 1877. Various low-threshold offers of cold help are just as much a focus of their work as the service types according to §§ 67, 68 SGB XII, which were developed by the Stadtmission about 30 years ago.
