Anke Jansen is Co-founder of Housing First Nederland and has a carrier in consultancy, healthcare and human rights. The last 15 years, she started several Housing First projects and developed herself as an expert in ending homelessness on both national and local level with the principles of Housing First. She loves to make impact to create a human world for all.

I've been involved for over ten years in the fight against homelessness and the support of people in very precarious situations, and I'm currently Housing First referent at the Observatoire Wallon du Sans-Abrisme (in the French part of Belgium). In this role, I analyse programmes, organise training and take part in the identification of homeless people, in order to guarantee priority access to housing with appropriate support. As a former coordinator of the Housing First programme in Namur and a nurse at Relais Santé, I have always placed trust, individual skills and a holistic approach to support at the heart of my work. I also contribute to publications and training courses aimed at improving professional practices in the social sector.

Alena works to end homelessness in Eastern Slovakia by promoting affordable rental housing and integrated social, health, and employment services. She initiated the Housing First Programme for Families in Košice in 2020, now expanding to Prešov. As a strategic leader at the DEDO Foundation, she advocates for systemic change, shifting from managing to ending homelessness. Alena has trained professionals, policymakers, and service providers on evidence-based approaches to homelessness. With a background in law and social work, she holds a Master of Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School. Her goal is to ensure that housing is recognised as a human right in Slovakia.

I am a researcher, consultant and learning facilitator in housing and environmental fields. I was the researcher-evaluator of the Housing First pilot project in Latvia and have led several multi-stakeholder design workshops on Housing First and social worker trainings. In the Hub, I was part of the TTT Cohort 5. While primarily a researcher, I have a rich experience in leading formal and informal, face-to-face and online workshops and trainings spanning from policy to skills development. I draw my content and methods from rigorous policy and academic literature analysis, critical pedagogy, embodied learning, and design anthropology.

For the last thirty years or so, Nicolas has been working more specifically on issues of local social development and housing policies. His research focuses on the emergence of fundamental rights in social work practices. He has spent a large part of his career in the field of social policy on accommodation and housing. Today, he is involved in rolling out the Housing First model in France and piloting the Metropole of Lyon's Housing First policy.

I’m a lawyer who’s always wanted to use my legal background to serve the social sector and combat poverty. After gaining experience both in academia and in the NGO sector, I joined the Belgian Federal Administration for Social Integration as a Housing First coordinator. I'm thrilled to be part of this Train the Trainer programme and to be able to promote the Housing First model. I'm also eager to engage with a diverse European network, which I believe will enrich our collective efforts in ending homelessness.

Margherita has been working for 10 years in services aimed at homeless people within third sector organizations. She has always been passionate about the issue of the right to housing and for this reason she has coordinated and worked in the Housing First program managed by the Piazza Grande Social Cooperative. In the Cooperative she has covered various roles of coordination of socio-educational projects and is currently vice president. Margherita collaborates with Fio.PSD in the context of sector specific operators training, the training focusing especially on Housing First projects, social and health integration, and community work.

After completing compulsory school and an apprenticeship in the metal industry, I studied "social work/social management" at the Vienna University of Applied Sciences on the second educational path. I was able to gain my first practical experience in helping the homeless during my studies in the context of "assisted living" in an internship. After completing my studies in 2011, I stayed in the field of helping the homeless and worked in the areas of "consulting" and "street work" for a little over two years, where I gained my first experience. After a one-year stay abroad, I then switched to the area of "partially assisted living/outpatient assisted living" in the same field of work, in which I have been working since 2014. I completed the Housing First Europe Hub's TTT - Train The Trainer - training in 2022.

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.