Throughout Europe, there is on ongoing and differentiated process of professionalization of the homeless sector, as well as an increasingly evidence-based approach to service delivery, partly driven by EU-level policy developments. The European Commission (EC) has called on MS to develop a social investment approach to tackling homelessness, with a strong emphasis on ‘housing-led’ solutions, which involve promoting sustainable exits from homelessness into permanent housing as rapidly as possible. Countries in Central and Eastern Europe face many common challenges in tackling homelessness, and it is therefore relevant to work on CVET for support workers from a transnational perspective within the region by means of a focused project. The partnership consists of 4 partners who are non-profit homeless service providers, all involved in developing and providing vocational training for staff. They also work directly with homeless people, including via adult education and training. They will bring their existing knowledge and expertise about training staff to work with homeless people, as well as about adult education and training for homeless people, and will provide the mechanism for scaling up the learning generated by the project in their countries. 1 partner (FEANTSA) is a European umbrella organisation working exclusively on homelessness. They will bring European/international knowledge and understanding as well as experience of transnational training projects. 1 partner (Habitat for Humanity Hungary) is part of a global network, present in 80 countries of the world, and has organizations in CEE countries also not involved in this partnership (Bulgaria, Macedonia, Slovakia), all working in the area of providing housing for needy people. In Hungary one of their projects exclusively target homeless people with a housing first approach, while others work with other socially excluded groups (like ethnic minorities). They are also active in advocacy for better housing policies. In addition to the first management meeting in Warsaw, there will be five more transnational project partner meetings, one hosted by each project partner. The main purpose of these meetings will be to visit projects and exchange good practices, and to work on the common outcomes (good practice and case study papers, training curriculum, policy recommendations). These meetings will happen with the participation of homeless people, who will be present at the project visits and take part in the meetings as relevant. The project meeting in Brussels will focus on relevant European developments relating to homeless policies and services. More specifically, project partners will be involved in a focus-group type discussion in order to test and provide feedback on new materials which will have been developed in the framework of a Massive Online Open Course on Housing First. Project partners will also receive training on the European dimension of homeless policies. We hope that not only will the participants of the project meetings be more equipped to work with homeless people, but, together with participating organisations will gain enhanced knowledge and understanding of how to train workforce in view of best practices in promoting pathways out of homelessness. They will acquire new training tools, which participants will be able to embed within the participation organisations in order to reach more staff, as well as a strengthened capacity to use ICT and other innovations in training, and a strengthened capacity to lobby for implementation of best practices to support pathways out of homelessness in policy and service terms. Policy makers and other stakeholders on the local, national and European levels will additionally be targeted through the dissemination strategy. The impact on them will be greater awareness of best practices in supporting pathways out of homelessness, and in particular of how best practice models for which there is an increasing international/European evidence base can be situated and applied to specific national/contexts.
The Ways out of homelessness partnership united 6 homelessness organizations from four Central European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania) and FEANTSA, fighting for homeless people and affordable housing solutions on a European level. While there had been several European projects and exchanges of know how and good practice in the field of housing already, the partner organizations felt the need to focus exclusively on local solutions from the Central Eastern European (CEE) region – the system, rate and availability of general social support, as well as social housing and housing subsidies in these countries differ greatly from those existing in older EU member states, creating unique challenges for both homeless people and support workers trying to help their ways out of homelessness. We did not plan to study the social context in great depth, rather decided to focus on what works and how. We were keen to learn from each other, looking at local solutions that might be adaptable in our own countries and cities. The partnership succeeded in gathering local housing solutions for homeless people in the CEE region. This was a wise choice of area, as our region is truly different from that of the older member states. During our meetings and conversations we confirmed that the social policies of our countries are indeed very similar, and so are our problems. While there is a growing awareness of housing-led and Housing First approaches (even the European Commission has called on member states to adopt a social investment approach to homelessness, with a strong emphasis on housing-led approaches) both in Europe and globally, we have struggled to identify such projects in our countries. Unlike in many Western European countries, most local solutions here did not start from the idea of housing being a basic human right, and were in fact closer to the traditional staircase than the housing-led model. And while we have seen some initiatives trying to adapt certain elements of the Housing First approach, none of the projects visited can offer life-long support or even support as long as needed as funding is nowhere to be taken granted for such a long term. Still, in our local contexts, where there is a severe shortage of social housing and, in most countries examined, also of substantial housing allowance, the housing solutions introduced are to be considered innovative steps away from the traditional staircase system. We managed to involve a variety of stake holders in the exchange – both in the sense of organizations (local NGOs - Casa Ioana and IUS Medicinae Foundation, umbrella organizations representing many organizations on the national (SAD) or European level (FEANTSA), one public organization (BMSZKI) and a member of a global network (Habitat for Humanity Hungary), all offering services for homeless people and training to social workers), as well as participants in the partnership meetings (field workers, service leaders, public officers, researchers, advocates and homeless service users). Another goal of the project was to explore the various training programs that are offered to support workers working with homeless people on their way out of homelessness. We found that there were no training programs in the partner organizations, nor, according to our knowledge, in our countries, to enable support workers to help former homeless people in housing more efficiently - only training regarding technical information, but not the development of skills. So the joint curriculum we agreed to come up with is more a sketch of the needs identified of what areas a training program should contain. By locally testing the Housing First Europe Guide, a separate transnational project FEANTSA had worked on, we came to the conclusion that specific training programs would be useful, however, any materials developed elsewhere should be adapted to our local contexts and possibilities. At this point it is difficult to state whether the project has indirectly supported people to get out of homelessness, which was one of our long-term goals. What we do know, however, is that the project created the preconditions so that member organizations can realistically improve the life of certain homeless people in our countries. Through our local, national and transnational dissemination activities (not only of the final publication, including policy recommendations, but also through all the documents collected or produced during the project) we believe we have spread the word of the necessary elements of successful supported housing programs.