Lessons from a nation that has halved homelessness

To tackle a social problem we have to find the ‘bright spots’, those examples where the problem has been drastically reduced.

As we noted in a previous post, few nations can match the sustained reductions in homelessness witnessed in Finland. At the heart of this success are organisations like our World Habitat Award winner, the Y-Foundation.

In October 2015, World Habitat took a group of people from six European cities to learn about these achievements. This Peer Exchange brought together people from grassroots homelessness organisations, local/regional authorities and national governments, together with Y-Foundation staff and partners. We were also joined by colleagues from FEANTSA and Community Solutions.

The Peer Exchange provided invaluable insights into the application of Housing First in Finland. It gave us a unique view of how to support those with vulnerabilities and it demonstrated how organisations can work together in co-ordinated ways to achieve ambitious national objectives.

We are sharing our initial learning from this Peer Exchange in the form of a social media story. See here.

This learning is helping us build a movement to end street homelessness in European cities. For more information about this see here.