The participating organisations wanted to acquire a deeper understanding of the aging of people experiencing homelessness, while we exchanged knowhow and good practices from our existing programs and service provisions. During the learning event implemented we wanted to identify the main challenges and gaps in the services and draw up the main aspects of the effective support. We aimed to use the learnings from the project to develop new protocols and support methods to find better responses to the needs of older service users or those in bad health conditions. Prior to the project implementation, partners identified four general areas where the exchange of the existing practices could contribute to the development of support. We aimed to find approaches and support methods for people with lived experience of homelessness that provide • better access to health services, • better possibilities for participation, engaging with others, and rebuilding social relations, • better response to mental-health needs, grief-processing and recovery from the effects of previous traumatic experiences, • better access to accommodation services and supported independent housing.
Most people who have experienced prolonged homelessness have multiple support needs as the hardships they repeatedly face contribute to serious health problems, including physical and mental health issues and often coexisting with addiction and substance misuse. By the age of 40-50, these factors can result in the deterioration of health that is typically experienced at a much later stage in the general population. Among the service users of the partner organisations there is a significant proportion who have serious health problems that affect their physical condition and well-being, and reduce their capacity of independent living. Without the improvement of support provided to them, their needs connected to well-being, health, and dignity remain only partly answered. In this project, partners analysed the main problems that their service users in older age or with complex health conditions face, and identified elements of their approaches and support methods that effectively can be used in the daily operation.