FEANTSA has a new Communications Officer. Silke Paasche started working mid-January and replaces Dearbhal Murphy who has become Policy Officer at FEANTSA. In addition to communication, Silke will also be coordinating the Employment Working Group.

Silke is 26 years old and comes from Germany. Before FEANTSA, she worked for the Social Platform and the anti-discrimination and relations with civil society unit of the European Commission. Silke speaks German, English, French and Spanish and can be contacted at Silke.paasche@feantsa.org.

On their informal meeting in Villach on January 2006, the EU Employment and Social Affairs Ministers (EPSCO Council) called on Head of States to strengthen the social dimension in the revised Lisbon Agenda at the Spring European Council, 23-24 March 2006. The Social Affairs Ministers also referred to the contribution made by the streamlined open method of coordination of social protection and social inclusion and recalled the common commitment to make a decisive impact on the eradication of poverty in Europe. One main theme discussed at the meeting was the concept of “flexicurity”. This concept aims to consolidate a high level of flexibility on the labour market with a high level of social security.

The EPSCO Council will meet again on 10^th March 2006 where it will adopt its final conclusions to be sent to the Spring European Council two weeks later.

The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) in Vienna published a new report on ‘Migrants, Minorities and Housing: Exclusion, Discrimination and Anti-Discrimination in 15 European member states’ in December 2005. A team of researchers of the University of Leeds prepared the report. It shows that in different Member States similar mechanisms of housing disadvantage and discrimination affect migrants and minorities, such as denying access to accommodation on the grounds of the applicant’s skin colour.

The report also highlights the great variety in available data on migrants, minorities and housing between different Member States, and points out the gaps in data that remain. Although the European anti-discrimination directives from 2000 are having a positive impact on Member States strengthening anti-discrimination legislation, the report demonstrates resistance and failure by public authorities to implement them properly when it comes to discrimination of migrants and minorities in the housing area.  

The report is available on the EUMC Website.

For more information on immigration, homelessness and housing exclusion, you can order a copy of the book produced by FEANTSA’s European Observatory on Homelessness in 2004: “Immigration and Homelessness in Europe”. To order a copy, email mary.fay@feantsa.org or visit the FEANTSA bookshop.

After 13 years of existence, the first and principal centre for people experiencing homelessness in Prague run by FEANTSA member NADEJE (Hope) closes down.

The building had belonged to the city of Prague since 1945. After ten years of judicial procedures, an heir of the former owners, a Jewish family killed during the war, obtained the house back and sold it immediately without taking notice of its current use. The building will now be transformed into a luxury hotel.

After six months, the city of Prague finally accepted to spend 1,5 million euros for a replacement of the centre for homeless people. Although a new building was found quickly, negotiations continued as local authorities were reluctant to cooperate.

More facilities for the 4000-5000 homeless people in Prague are urgently needed. Currently, there are only around 900 beds available in homeless shelters. It will take until spring before the new centre will be ready. In the meantime, the city of Prague in co-operation with several charitable associations set up 8 military tents close to the city-centre. This is the first time such an initiative for rough sleepers in the wintertime was set up in the Czech Republic.

FOCUS Ireland launched its new strategy to help tackle homelessness. Over the next five years, the organisation aims to provide a home a day for thousands of people. The organisation will reach this target by securing 800 units of accommodation through direct acquisition, partnership and building programmes. 80 % of this housing will be for single adults while the remaining 20 % will be dedicated to families. Furthermore, FOCUS Ireland will double its tenancy support and settlement services in order to provide more than 1000 households with adequate housing.

The strategy will put significant emphasis on prevention work. Specifically trained staff will work at helping people at risk of homelessness. These interventions include the development of a Young Person’s Residential Hub in Dublin and the development of education programmes for people at risk of homelessness.

FOCUS Ireland has been working in the field of homelessness since 1985. The new comprehensive strategy builds upon this long-term experience. The costs of € 200 Million until 2010 will be financed to a great extent by the State and Statutory Bodies. FOCUS Ireland intends to raise approximately € 37 Million through its fundraising activities.

The organisation highlights that in order to eliminate homelessness, access to long-term supported housing for vulnerable groups is crucial. According to the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) an increase of 73,000 net social housing units between 2005-2012 would be needed in Ireland to tackle the backlog in social housing and meet future needs.

Nearly half of the people across the UK feel sympathy when they see a person experiencing homelessness. However, 14 % indicate that they feel angry and 12% are embarrassed.

These are the results of a survey of nearly 2400 people in the UK that was released by St Mungo’s at the end of December. With this survey, St Mungo’s wants to raise awareness and ensure that the government takes the problem of homelessness seriously.

 Other results from the survey show that women are twice as likely as men to feel guilty when they see a person who is homeless. 66% of the surveyed persons indicated that they would be most fearful of attack and their general safety living if they were forced to live on the streets. Over half (51%) are concerned they would be lonely. And only 1.6 % always give to people experiencing homelessness on the streets while the majority (52 %) would never give their cash.

 Regarding regional differences, in the Southeast people were least likely to feel sympathy (42 %) and the most likely to feel indifference (21%) when they see a person who is homeless. Londoners were the most likely to feel embarrassed at 18 %.

150 people have died because of the freezing temperatures in Poland this winter. The police reported that nearly half of the victims were people experiencing homelessness of whom nearly 90% were under the influence of alcohol. 
Last winter around 180 people froze to death in Poland, according to police statistics. The majority of victims are men between the age of 35 – 50. Homeless shelters such as Monar Markot try to save as much people as they can by accepting even people that have consumed alcohol although this is contrary to the regulations. The Polish state spends 1,3 million euros for the approximately 100 000 people experiencing homelessness in the country but this is not enough. Hanna Palska, sociologist and researcher at the Collegium Civitias, explains that many people who are currently homeless in Poland are victims of the new economic system. They have lost their job or their housing in one of the ‘workers hotels’ who where shut down after the bankruptcy of the company.

More and more people in Vienna are seeking services from one of the 34 shelters for homeless people. The “Gruft”, one of the biggest service centers for homeless people, reports 46,000 distributed meals in 2005 which constitutes a plus of 20% over the last three years. Other homeless shelters in the Austrian capital also register a growing demand for services.

The reasons for this development are multiple. On the one hand, “traditional” places for people who are homeless such as railway stations or empty houses are not available anymore due to enforced policy control and the demolition of unused buildings. On the other hand, affordable housing is getting scarce. There is almost no apartment available without paying high deposits. Especially for young people who do not have much financial resources yet this constitutes a major hurdle.  In addition, rents have been annually growing by 3% since a housing rent reform in 1994. Combined with high unemployment rates, housing costs are making the group of 18-25 year olds particularly vulnerable to be affected by homelessness in Austria.

In the context of the operation «For the lack of a roof, the cloth of a tent”, the organisation Médecins du Monde distributed almost 200 tents to rough sleepers in Paris since the 21 December 2005.

With this action, the association wants to raise awareness among public authorities about the lack and inadequate shelter facilities for people experiencing homelessness. Médecins du Monde questions the “emergency approach “ of public authorities and calls for sustainable housing solutions for the people who are homeless.  

Deputy Minister for Social Cohesion, Catherine Vautrin, judged the operation as counter productive because it would perpetuate people experiencing homelessness in tents. Referring to a recent survey, she explained that the main problem is that 22% of people who are homeless refuse to go the night shelters.

International aid organisation, Medecins du Monde, launched a new health project in London. The scheme intends to provide information and medical services to marginalized people, such as migrants and people experiencing homelessness. The underlying aim is helping them accessing mainstream health services. It will offer one-off treatments and prescriptions for pain or infection, but not for the care of long-term conditions.

The project, based in Tower Hamlets, will be working with three local voluntary sector organizations – Praxis, Prodence Row and U-Turn.  Support workers will be trained to help vulnerable people with making telephone calls or do the necessary paperwork.

Medecins du Monde emphasizes that, drawing on the expertise from European colleagues, it intents to complement rather than to conflict with existing services.

The UK Public Health Association, however, is concerned that the individualized and local approach of Medecins du Monde will fail to address the wider social and environmental context of public health in the UK.

Homelessness has risen considerably in Sweden, says the national welfare agency. According to a survey from spring 2005, 17,800 people are experiencing homelessness in Sweden. This constitutes a rise of about 15 % from the number of 2000-3000 in 1999.

One part of the explanation for this significant change may lie in the comprehensive definition of homelessness applied. The survey did not only cover rough sleepers but also people living unwillingly with family or friends or in residences with very short-term subleases. (For a typology of homelessness and housing exclusion, see ETHOS definition.)

The results of the survey also show the disproportionately high percentage of people experiencing homelessness with a foreign background – 26 % compared to 12% of the population as a whole. Among the people covered in the survey, the agency identified about 3,600 people who are sleeping rough in Sweden.

StreetShine offers people who are experiencing homelessness the opportunity to (re)integrate into employment. The social enterprise trains them in professional shoe care and offers their services in offices around London. Not only does this provide marginalised people with new self esteem, it also fills a gap in the UK market.

The employees earn more than they would get on benefits, usually around Pounds 175 a month which can rise to about Pounds 250 a week.

StreetShine was the idea of property developer Nick Grant who had seen a similar approach in the US. In the UK, the enterprise won a start up grant of Pounds 100,000 from the glimmer of Hope Trust charity and Pounds 75,000 for business development from the charitable trust, Esmee Fairbairn.

StreetShine has expanded rapidly and has already established 23 offices in London. The enterprise now also considers offering its services on airports, railway stations and in government offices, such as the House of Commons.

Homeless services in Ireland register a growing number of immigrants from the new EU member states, according to the new “Away from Home and Homeless” report from the Irish Homeless Agency. 

Between 60 and 120 people from the new EU member States were seeking support from homeless services in Dublin on any given day last September. The majority were single Polish men in their mid thirties. They had come to Ireland poorly prepared and with little money, assuming that jobs and accommodation would be found quickly.

According to the report, one third of 49 interviewed people were sleeping rough, mainly in parks, railway stations and on the streets of Dublin. Some 15 % were staying with friends or relatives and 6 % were living in squats. Many had been in Ireland for less than four months. Only one quarter had secured a job before leaving Poland and 64 % did not have accommodation arrangements in place before leaving home. 78 % brought less than € 500 which is the average wage in Poland. The great majority of the interviewed immigrants (82%) did not have any previous experience of homelessness and a very good standard of education.

The report shows that many of the immigrants had been experiencing exploitation on their arrival in Ireland or had to find out that the job they had been promised did not exist. Among its recommendations, the report urges that accommodation and supplementary welfare allowances be provided on a short-term basis to immigrants in need during their first months in Ireland.

The Slovenian capital needs more facilities for people experiencing homelessness. The existing shelters with 28 and 18 beds are by far not enough to provide everybody in need with a safe place to sleep. The 28-bed shelter is reserved for people whose expenses are covered by the Social Service Centre. The 18 –bed shelter is for people without documents. It opened only a year ago thanks to a donation of the International Ladies Association.

For about 15 years, the Ljubljana Shelter is providing food for people who are homeless. In winter, up to 120 people are fed, three times more than ten years ago. 10 % are women. Quality and outreach of the services for the concerned group depend on donations and resources from the Ljubljana municipality.  One major problem is that people experiencing homelessness lack health insurance. After the municipality stopped its payments for this at the end of 2004, the shelter now relies on the work of volunteer doctors from a hospital. In 2006, an additional source of income will be the magazine “Kings of the Street”, which deals with problems related to homelessness.  

The temporary banning of people from public spaces who are suspected threatening security and public order is legal, the Federal Court of Switzerland recently judged. Thirteen “undesirable” persons had lodged an appeal at the Federal Tribunal after their first initiative at the Administrative Court of Bern had failed. The concerned persons had been banned from a railway station in November 2003, and prohibited from meeting and drinking alcohol. Their lawyer, Danièle Jenni, considers now to go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. According to Jenni, the banning article on which the judgement of the Federal Court is based, considerably impairs fundamental rights.

Since its adoption, this article provokes derogation. One critique is that the article does not respect the principle of presumed innocence as it leaves a lot of scope for security agents. Only used on exceptional cases in the beginning, Danièle Jenni reports that the ordinance is now being implemented almost everyday. 

71% of the people affected by homelessness in Basque Country have at least secondary education. This is the result of a survey of 1833 persons in food kitchens and social restaurants that was conducted by Eustat (the statistical institute of the Basque Country) in collaboration with the National Statistics Institute (INE).

The survey shows that 57% of the people experiencing homelessness finished secondary education and another 14% studied at university. This profile differs from the profiles of people experiencing homelessness in similar surveys in other countries. The researchers explained this singularity by the high percentage (48%) of well-educated immigrants, mostly from African cities, in particular from Morocco, European countries and South America.

Other results of the survey demonstrate a growing number of women among the still predominantly male persons (75%) experiencing homelessness. 72,5% of the surveyed persons are unemployed. 40 % indicated that they neither drink alcohol nor take drugs. 50% report that they have already been insulted and threatened and one out of four have been physically aggressed.

Cold weather all over Europe also has had bad consequences in Romania, especially on homeless people. Within days, 14 people in the country froze to death as well inside as outside their homes.

Special measures were taken by local authorities and by social services providers. In Bucharest, the city with the highest number of people experiencing homelessness – 15000 homeless according to official estimations- hot meals were served and a special night shelter was opened. In the second district of Bucharest, the mayor Neculai Ontanu decided to install ambulances and six tents on different streets of the district in order to offer citizens free medical assistance and hot tea. In the first district, the mayor Andrei Chiliman disposed the construction of a night shelter in the basement of the Caraiman Hospital in order to protect almost 20 people.

The Samu social Organization is offering to the residents of the shelter, during the night, soup and tea and is also providing them the services of a social assistant (twice a week) and a doctor (once a week). The night-shelter will be available until the improvement of meteorological conditions.

Rock Trust, a youth homelessness charity in Scotland, is organising a one day conference on Social Networks in central Edinburgh, on 16^th May 2006. The conference aims to present evidence on the positive impact of social networks on ending and preventing homelessness. The conference will deal with approaches such as mentoring, befriending and mediation as key measures in (re)building such networks. The organisers wish to bring together various relevant actors working in the field that have approached the issues of homelessness, isolation and social support in similar or in very different ways. People interested in participating or contributing to this conference should contact Lesley Stenhouse as soon as possible at Lesley.stenhouse@rocktrust.org.

The  European Network for Housing Research (ENHR ) and the Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia announce a call for abstracts and titles for the presentations at the conference on “Housing in an expanding Europe: Theory, Policy, Implementation and Participation”. The Conference will take place on 2-5 July 2006 in Ljubljana.

All details on the conference's theme, workshop topics and subtopics, as well as all other needed information are available on the conference web page at http://enhr2006-ljubljana.uirs.si/

The City of Utrecht organises a conference on 29-30 March 2006 to present its approach on social emergency intervention. The new approach has been established in Utrecht in 2000. Its aim is to combine the provision of care facilities for rough sleepers with the improvement of the inner city environment and the decrease of drug use and drug dealing in public spaces. More information will be available soon.

The latest issue of the FEANTSA magazine is on the theme of “Social Emergency and Crisis Intervention” and brings together many of the themes and issues in relation to street homelessness that were discussed within the framework of the annual theme 2005. There is a contribution from the local authorities in Rotterdam on approaches to street homelessness. You can read the magazine on our website. To subscribe contact silke.paasche@feantsa.org

Secours Catholique – Caritas France recently published its report ‘Statistics of service use 2004’ which deals with exclusion related to housing.
In 2004, the Secours Catholique documented about 650 000 situations of poverty which represents about 1,5 million persons, including 690 000 children. A first part of the report shows the general profile of the people received. A second part analyses their housing situation.

The report can be ordered on the website of Secours Catholique-Caritas France
http://www.secours-catholique.asso.fr/v3/une/une_publications.htm.

FEANTSA is supported financially by the European Commission.
The views expressed herein are those of the authors and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.