Exploiting the potential of European cooperation: Focus on homelessness

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Exploiting the potential of European
cooperationFocus on homelessness!

• Presentation FEANTSA
• Round Table Social Inclusion
• 2007

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Extreme poverty vs Poverty

• Urgency
• Size
• Rates trends can be different
• Causes solutions
• Structural vs personal causes
• Employment
• Profile
• Men vs women
• Trends
• Migration
• Approach
• Services vs. policy
• Effective policies
• Public perception

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Homelessness Extreme poverty

• Practical definition
• Reality of extreme poverty
• Measurable
• Practical for policy purposes
• Living (housing) situation as basis
• Dimensions (2 of 3)
• Social
• Physical
• Legal
• Different forms reflect pathways
• Street
• No house
• Very inadequate house
• Very insecure house
• Disconnected from society
• ETHOS

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Homelessness the basics

• Profile
• Men Single Mental health Addiction
• Recent changes
• Size
• No (comparable) stats
• Growing?
• gt 1.000.000
• welfare classification
• Recent
• Rough sleeping!
• Policy
• Emergency
• Recent
• Holistic
• Progress

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European cooperation under OMC

• OMC
• Policy progress through learning and comparison
• Conditions
• Political relevance will
• Lack of knowledge consensus
• Demand for info will to learn
• Similar trends mutual cooperation
• Visible impact
• Focus

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Homelessness in OMC

• Political relevance and will
• EU
• Joint Reports
• Active inclusion
• Feeding in out
• Member States
• Urgency
• Strategic/pragmatic way of policy making
• e.g. France, Ireland, Finland, Spain, Hungary
• Lack of knowledge consensus
• Incomplete
• Profile
• Size
• Impact of policies
• Scattered
• Source of creativity

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Homelessnessin OMC

• Demand for info and willingness to learn
• From
• Policy makers, NGOs and other stakeholders
• Why?
• New policies
• e.g. Scandinavia
• Ineffective policies
• e.g. criminalisation
• Complexity
• Homelessness as laboratory
• Similar/relevant trends
• Relevant
• e.g. home-ownership
• Eastern Europe
• Similar
• e.g. increasing vulnerability
• Denmark

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Homelessness in OMC

• !Mutual! Cooperation
• No  teachers pupils 
• Weak link with traditional welfare rankings
• Weak link with party politics
• e.g. Peer review
• Visible impact
• Potential for policy change
• e.g. right to housing
• Targets
• e.g. rough sleeping (UK), targets (Finland),
  eviction (Austria)
• Focus
• Public responsibilities
• Pragmatism
• Subsidiarity

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Conclusions

• Homelessness is useful focus for EU MS
• Redynamises the OMC social inclusion
• Focuses on mutual learning
• Meets need at MS level
• Provides social image for the EU

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