Timisoara decided to join the ROOF network because, like in many other European cities, homelessness is more and more present and we wanted to learn new ways towards ending it. Housing First approach to end homelessness is seen as the most effective especially when working with people with complex social needs. During the transnational meetings we could see good examples of how this approach is used in more than half of the cities from the ROOF network to successfully improve the life of people and take them out of homelessness. Still Romania and Timisoara were not familiar with the Housing First approach and most of the URBACT Local Group members never heard of it. So, we decided that in order to draw an accurate and achievable Integrated Action Plan we need to use the Small-Scale Actions to gain more knowledge on Housing First approach.
“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society …”
Kofi Annan
We contacted the Housing First Europe Hub to ask for permission to translate the Housing First Europe Guide in Romanian and for their support for a training course in Timisoara. The Hub was established by the Y-Foundation (Finland) and FEANTSA (European Federation of National Organizations Working with Homeless People), along with more than 15 partners in 2016. Their goal is to promote the Housing First approach, core principles of Housing First and scaling up in various communities and across Europe.
Faithfull to their mission, the Housing First Europe Hub gladly agreed to approving the Housing First Europe Guide’s translation and now all our ULG members have access to it.
The Hub also provided a two days training session where ULG members got an introduction to Housing First, learned more about the daily practice of Housing First and they got instructions on how to develop an actions plan to start Housing First in a city or a region. There was also room for creative thinking on Housing First.
21 professionals, members of ULG, working with homeless or at risk of homelessness people enthusiastically joined the training in December 2021 and gave very positive feedback. When asked what they learned, the answers were: ‘what does Housing First mean’, ‘a new model of social services for homeless people’, ‘how can we raise funds for implementing HF’, ‘there is hope for former institutionalized homeless people to be able to live more independently’, ‘Housing First is an approach that provides permanent, affordable housing as soon as possible for people and families facing homelessness, and then provides the support services and connections to community support that people need’, ‘what are the challenges of this concept’, ‘housing is a fundamental human right and therefore should not be denied to anyone, even if they are abusing alcohol or other substances’, ‘models of HF implementation in other cities’, ‘how can we find resources for the implementation of Housing First in Timisoara’, ‘individualized and customer-oriented support’.
Confucius said ‘Knowledge without practice is useless. Practice without knowledge is dangerous.’ After learning all this information on Housing First approach, Timisoara’s ULG members will use it on designing the Integrated Action Plan, implementing Housing First approach locally and to end homelessness in our city.
