Advocacy

Housing First is a key solution to help end homelessness. Some countries and cities have well-established Housing First programmes that are integrated into their social strategy, others are just getting started. Here you can find resources to help introduce and/or scale Housing First in your community.

Got a question? Don’t hesitate to contact our Hub Coordinators, Samara Jones or Juha Kahila, for more information about how the Hub can support you.

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Advocacy Support

Together with our Partners, the Hub offers tools and information resources which are freely available to anyone trying to make the case for Housing First.

From a feasibility study on how a major city can scale up Housing First as its first approach to tackling homelessness, to a network of motivated Housing First advocates, to training and webinars on Housing First, as well as supporting new thinking around the role of Housing First in local, regional, national and European-level responses to homelessness.

From ‘scaling up’ to systems change

Most recently, the Housing First Europe Hub has been on a journey to understand the limits of simply ‘scaling up’ Housing First, however brilliant those individual programmes continue to be. Our mission is to support organisations and governments to end homelessness by also applying the principles of Housing First to whole systems.

We want to help local and national governments to make the right policy choices, and at EU level there exists a special opportunity to embed this approach within the European Platform to Combat Homelessness.

We also want to challenge and support housing and service providers to make a transition, so that all services are delivered against the principles of Housing First. Human rights, choice and control, and the other tenets of Housing First are directly applicable to every intervention to prevent or tackle homelessness.

A successful transition to this housing-led approach requires a change in culture and thinking: changes in how we work, how we train and support our workforce; changes to funding regimes; changes to the way people access housing; and much more besides. As we have seen in this report, this culture shift can emerge in different places, but the important and unifying factor is that the shift is intentional and sustained over time.

Resources

  • PUBLICATION: A New Systems Change Perspective – Demos Helsinki

    This report by Demos Helsinki examines how Housing First holds great potential to enable systems change in homelessness. Grounding the analysis in systems thinking, the work has engaged decision-makers, advocates, experts and practitioners of Housing First through interviews and workshops in search of meaningful ways to ensure the… Check it out here

  • PUBLICATION: Achieving a new systems perspective to ending homelessness through Housing First: A policy and practice guide

    Achieving a new systems perspective to ending homelessness through Housing First: A policy and practice guide  Housing First programmes are one of the most researched social policy interventions of all time, and they are the most effective mechanism for supporting people with complex support needs out of… Check it out here
    Category: | Systemic Change

  • PRESS RELEASE: Systemic change needed to end homelessness in Europe for good

    (Photo: Raquel Sánchez Jiménez – Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda of Spain, speaking on day 1 of the conference)
    PRESS RELEASE – Madrid, 29th March 2022 

    Housing First is the key to unlocking systemic change to end homelessness in Europe by 2030.

    That’s the central message from the inaugural conference… Check it out here
    Category: Blog| Systemic Change

  • Conference Report: Unlocking Systemic Change with Housing First – Madrid, March 2022

    Our friends at Housing First Nederland have put together a report summarising some of their key insights and takeaways from the conference. Read the report here.   Check it out here
    Category: Blog| Systemic Change

  • Looking to the Future – Juha Kaakinen on the importance of perspective when developing Housing First

    “After over 9 years as a CEO of Y-Foundation I have already handed all responsibilities over to my successor Teija Ojankoski and I’m in the happy process of transition to retirement as a senior advisor. It means that I can speak freely without any liabilities. I have a theory that… Check it out here
    Category: Blog| Housing FirstMind shift/culture shiftSystemic ChangeTrauma-informed Care

Get involved!

Ending homelessness is totally achievable if we grasp this opportunity to do things differently. People experiencing homelessness deserve nothing less.

We particularly encourage you to read our latest publications on these topics above, which offer practical and pragmatic guides to help you navigate your Housing First and Systems Change journey, no matter where you are starting from.

To find out more about the Hub’s advocacy activities, to get involved, or for more information on any aspect of our advocacy work, please contact: samara.jones@housingfirsteurope.eu