HABITACT, the European exchange forum on local homeless strategies, organised a peer review in Odense, Denmark to discuss the local housing model, as well as European housing strategies. The European Social Network (ESN) was represented by its members, Susanne Pfau, Deputy Director of the Jobcentre in Offenbach, Germany; Thomas Land Christiansen, Head of Section at the Center for Politics in the Social Services Administration in Copenhagen; Madalen Saizarbitoria, Researcher at the SIIS Research and Documentation Centre in Spain; and Lisa Schönenberg, ESN Policy Officer.
Housing first approach
The city of Odense has been one of the key local authorities involved in the Danish National Homeless strategy that focuses on the Housing First approach. Odense reduced homelessness by 47% between 2009 and 2013. This success of the Housing First approach depends also on the housing market. The housing available in Odense to house homeless people is generally public housing across the city. The city of Odense has access to 25% of the empty apartments in the public housing stock of the city in order to address housing needs (in total 800 apartments). Moreover, the city cooperates with housing associations in order to locate appropriate housing and maintain apartments.
The models in Odense to support homeless people include Case Management with three main features:
1. Supporting people moving from temporary housing to their own apartment
2. Supporting one person with a specific task
3. Offering social caretaker support through key persons who are in contact with people with complex needs through forms of permanent support
Inclusive city
In order to create more knowledge on social exclusion, the city has piloted a GPS tracking project where the location of 20 vulnerable people was followed for one week. The results provided knowledge on popular locations for socially excluded people that urban planners and social services will use to develop spaces and the location of services.
Cooperation
During the peer review, representatives from Odense and European colleagues discussed how cooperation across sectors, with urban planners, housing associations, NGOs and the police, is important to the implementation of their housing strategies. In Bergamo in Italy, local authorities worked together with a landscape architect to redesign a park that aims to bring different people together. Whilst in Copenhagen, the Assertive Community Treatment includes employment support in order to address the fragmentation of services. Additionally, the awareness of police officers is an important part of the network. In Denmark, the training of police officers includes courses on cooperation methods with social services and health services.
Alongside this, Susanne Pfau described interventions in Offenbach to escape homelessness that feature specialised case management, advice for apartment search, and the provision of apartments for ex-offenders and victims of domestic violence. The case-managers focus on a long-term integration into the labour market in line with socio-psychological counselling and debt counselling.
Offenbach is distinct to the Danish shelters, as there is no social support in most of the shelters. However, in contrast to the Danish approach, the shelters in Offenbach are not solely directed towards vulnerable people with social needs, but also towards people who cannot find accommodation because of the high housing market prices.