How can cities support new groups at risk of homelessness?
In Poznan, the municipality believes that providing training and social support alongside a housing solution can help reduce homelessness. Beneficiaries of this programme are given the opportunity to rent a room in a shared flat, as well as support adjusted to their individual needs. Besides ensuring stability, psychological support or capacity building to find a job, this programme aims at ensuring acquisition of skills for independent living.
The city also ensures fairness and transparency of its selection process through a multi-criterial score qualification system. Points are attributed to each applicant on the basis of a set of criteria and a priority list defined by the city council. The resulting scores determine who will have the possibility to benefit from this programme.
Members of EUROCITIES’ working group homelessness learned about this good practice during a policy transfer in Poznan on 30 September-2 October. 40 participants from 9 European cities exchanged with local experts and project managers, as well as NGOs and beneficiaries from the programme.
In the framework of EUROCITIES’ campaign ‘Inclusive Cities for all: Social Rights in my City’, deputy mayor Bartosz Guss presented Poznan’s pledge on principle 19 (housing and assistance for the homeless) of the European Pillar of Social Rights, thus highlighting the political engagement of the city on this matter.
The policy transfer methodology applied during this meeting was developed by EUROCITIES to foster exchanges of good practices among cities sharing similar challenges. Its development, as well as this meeting are part of the EUROCITIES mutual learning programme which receives fund from the European Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) under the strategic partnership with the European Commission – DG EMPL.
Learn more about this policy transfer in the report of the meeting attached below.
