Six organisations in Berlin offer the ‘Housing First’ programme. (File photo)
© dpa
To date, around 420 homeless people in Berlin have found a home with the help of the Housing First scheme.
On 9 September this year, the 350th tenancy agreement was signed, said Cansel Kiziltepe, Senator for Social Affairs, during a press conference. “That means 420 people have now found a home of their own, including single parents, couples, families with children, but above all people for whom the path back to a new home of their own had been virtually blocked for a long time.”
Housing First has been in place in Berlin since 2018. It began with two organisations; there are now six. The concept is that people who are homeless or without a home are provided with permanent accommodation without many preconditions. Only afterwards do they receive educational and psychological support. The Phinove association, for example, specialises in finding flats for homeless families, including those from the EU.
Ilie, a 50-year-old from Romania, came to Berlin four years ago. “It’s very, very difficult for people from migrant backgrounds to find a flat,” he explains. Although he was working, he couldn’t find anywhere to live and ended up staying with strangers with his family, paying a great deal of money and without a tenancy agreement. With the help of Phinove, he found a flat of his own, where he has been living with his wife and 11-year-old daughter since May. The stress has finally eased and he is now feeling much better, he says.
Finding vacant flats is less difficult than one might think, said Anjes Sanogo from Housing First Queer, a service specifically for queer people experiencing homelessness. For landlords, letting through Housing First is attractive because the organisations provide specific and reliable points of contact. However, due to limited financial resources, the organisations can only employ a limited number of social workers. As a result, many applications have to be turned down.
This year, just under 3.7 million euros has been allocated in the budget for existing projects. Kiziltepe says this figure has risen every year in recent years. Homelessness is more visible in Berlin than ever before. There are homeless camps in many parts of the city. “Poverty is also part of society,” said Kiziltepe. “We cannot simply wipe out poverty and homelessness.” The district authorities are obliged to provide accommodation for homeless people, but they cannot force people to accept it if they do not want to.