Housing First is specifically tailored for individuals who require substantial assistance to transition out of homelessness. This approach is particularly beneficial for various groups, including those who are homeless and grappling with severe mental illnesses or mental health issues, individuals experiencing homelessness with problematic substance abuse, and those facing physical health challenges, disabilities, or chronic illnesses. Additionally, Housing First has demonstrated its effectiveness in supporting individuals experiencing long-term or recurring homelessness, who often lack social support networks and community connections.

More information can be found in the Housing First Europe Guide here (available in different languages).

Housing First services have demonstrated remarkable success in resolving homelessness for individuals with significant support needs. In the majority of cases, European Housing First services have achieved a homelessness resolution rate of at least 80% for those in the programme.

Data supporting this high housing retention rate can be found in the Housing First Guide here and the ‘Housing First in Europe – An Overview of Implementation, Strategy and Fidelity’ report here. 

Support providers adhere to the principles of active engagement and respectful persistence, ensuring that cases remain open even when engagement levels are low. If a client becomes completely self-sufficient and needs 0 support, then they would graduate from the HF programme. 

Local partners usually actively collaborate to determine the specific support needs and preferences of each individual, allowing them to define what support means to them and how they are willing to receive it. In practice, most tenants engage with support in a personalised manner, benefiting from the removal of conditionality and emphasis on choice and control. 

This approach enables individuals to identify and access the support that holds the most value for them as they settle into their new home. There is no predetermined support plan or mandatory number of support hours to fulfil.

This can vary from country to country or even in between cities within the same country. The most promising approach is usually a multi-level approach including both top-down and bottom-up strategies. 

If you are interested in how things work in your country, you can visit the country page on our home page and see the stakeholders and strategies involved. 

The homelessness sector involves multiple stakeholders with diverse approaches, resources, and interests, resulting in potential resistance from various actors such as local authorities, municipalities, and government entities. To effectively address this resistance, advocacy work and strategic lobbying can be undertaken at the appropriate levels, including local, regional, and national levels.

The Housing First Europe Hub has a working group dedicated to Advocacy and Policy Development which is a place to exchange ideas and good practice about advocacy on regional, national and EU level. It is also a place to plan initiatives which can be collectively launched to support the Housing First Europe Hub members’ work.

Homelessness is caused by many interconnected factors, spanning from insufficient availability of affordable housing and poverty to mental health challenges and addiction. The implementation of Housing First can be instrumental in facilitating this transformation, but only if it is integrated into a systems change approach.

The principles that guide Housing First should hence not only be applied to individual programmes, but should also be used to transform the broader approach towards resolving homelessness.

For more information about how Housing First has the potential to enable a systems change in homelessness, you can read the Demos Helsinki Report on ‘A new systems perspective to ending homelessness’ here. 

The city of Liverpool conducted a feasibility study on the implementation of Housing First on a wider scale in 2021. You can read the full report here.

This study demonstrated as well that a change in systems and culture is needed for a successful implementation but it also showed that collaborations and a network of various partners and stakeholders is needed. Networks on every level are the key to implementing Housing First

The building of a network and at the same time ensuring Housing First fidelity on a national and international level can be ensured through training programmes for Housing First workers and managers. 

The Housing First Europe Hub offers a Train the Trainer programme to ensure that trainers from different countries speaking different languages get the right tools to then offer Housing First training in their home countries.  More information can be found here. 

A positive development on EU level towards tackling homelessness took place within the recent years. The European Parliament, other European institutions, EU governments and civil society are shifting towards housing-led approaches as well as a focus from managing to ending homelessness. In both cases Housing First is the right approach to achieve these goals. 

Evidence of this can be found in the European Parliament resolution of 24 November 2020 on tackling homelessness rates in the EU as well as the European Parliament resolution of 21 January 2021 on access to decent and affordable housing for all. This resolution calls on the member states to adopt the principles of Housing First. 

Currently the European Commission in the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan encourages stakeholders to implement HF as we can see in the EPOCH (European Platform on Combating Homelessness) work programme. 

However, it has to be mentioned that the EU doesn’t have jurisdiction over local housing markets. But on a national level, some of the EU grant calls include a focus on homelessness and sometimes Housing First. 

The five main challenges are:

• Achieving mind-shift on different levels
• Limited affordable housing
• Securing funding 
• Staff recruitment and retention 
• Fidelity and monitoring 

The challenges for the countries in the EU can vary a lot depending on the social economic conditions, political will and cultural sensitivity.

The question about how to source and secure Housing for Housing First projects is probably one of the most commonly asked questions from Housing First service providers. Especially in the current global situation with the rising cost of living crisis, being in a post pandemic time and the energy crisis it proves to be more and more difficult to access sufficient housing to meet the current need. 

Therefore, it is important to start the conversation about how we can source and secure more housing for Housing First and housing-led solutions to homelessness. The Housing First Europe Hub and the Housing Solutions Platform teamed up to look into ways to solve the housing shortage by showcasing examples from across Europe that include established projects but also untapped ways to unlock housing with great potential. You can read the full report here. 

Some Housing First programmes are not allowed to deliver services to migrants without papers. As long as programmes are able to help, no distinction is made. 

In some places the funding is limited to people with the right documents. 

Housing First in France works as a best practice example because a majority of people who are homeless in France are migrants. The Housing First teams can help with access to documents. Similar to adapting Housing First specifically for young people or women, when working with migrants Housing First, while still staying true to the core principles, needs to be adapted to the specific needs of migrants as well and offer different levels of help.

In addition, different partnerships / actors  would be needed. For working with migrants it could for example be useful to work closely with migrant organisations.