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This analysis examines the possibilities of the acquiring of the appropriate housing stock for the purposes of the “Housing First” programs in Poland. The author Aleksandra Różycka has checked in what way principles of the HF program could be satisfied if various housing resources (including those belonging to private owners, communes, the State Treasury, Social Housing Associations and those obtained under the protected housing formula) are used.
Full version in Polish: Mieszkania dla programów „Najpierw mieszkanie” w Polsce. Analiza dostępności, Aleksandra Różycka
Download Summary in English: Ambitious Principles of Housing First Programme in Polish Housing System by Aleksandra Rożycka and Julia Wygnańska
“The Constitution of the Republic of Poland seems to be unanimous with the assumptions of the “Housing First” programs. The Basic Law identifies the right to housing among those civil rights, which are covered by the public authorities’ duty to “pursue policies conducive to satisfying the housing needs of citizens, in particular combating homelessness”. Many programs conducted in the USA and in Europe since the 1990s are organized around “the satisfaction of the housing needs”, and focus on independent housing. The effects of these activities show that housing is the key success factor behind the therapeutic process, as proved by the health and independence of formerly chronically homeless people in a variety of life areas, such as housing retention, work, as well as family and social roles.
For the purposes of broader implementation of “Housing First” programs in Poland, it is necessary to evaluate whether the understanding of the need to support the process of moving out of homelessness as shown by the legislator in our Constitution, is going to be translated into the possibility of acquiring housing stock adequate for the HF specificity. In HF programs, housing for the participants is acquired and maintained in compliance with the requirements resulting from a number of principles, such as separating housing from support, harm reduction and self-determination (Tsemberis, 2010).
In order to determine possibilities in the area of acquiring housing, an analysis of detailed regulatory framework concerning the various forms of housing in Poland was carried out and supplemented with an evaluation of the social perceptions, which may have an impact on the officials’ decisions to do with the provision of housing resources of various types for the purposes of HF programs. Organizational and financial questions to do with the use of the particular housing stock type were also taken into account.
Although it is mostly the mechanism of rental on the private market which is used for the purposes of HF programs in other countries, in Poland this solution is a hardly intuitive option for social welfare programs. For this reason, the search for housing stock for the purposes of the analysis was carried out in an open manner, without initial limitations concerning the type of resource. The following five types of housing stock were distinguished (they are specified in the sequence reflecting their share in the total number of housing units):
Since none of the available types of housing stock is fully adequate, when planning the start-up of Housing First programs it is necessary to consider a mixed formula, i.e. using various housing forms depending on the program participation progress, which will make it possible to avoid the inconveniences of the particular housing types in their pure form.
The solutions that come to one’s mind first include the use (in the initial stage of the program) of resources belonging to the State Treasury, Social Housing Associations, and flats rented on the free market, for example in the organizational form of protected housing, with simultaneous application to the commune for the granting of a communal flat with social rent to program participants after the anticipated completion of the program.
It is also possible to use a single form of ownership, or for participants to keep the flats under the same address when mixed organizational formula is used: initially as a protected flat from communal resources, and then as accommodation rented on the basis of a civil law agreement as social housing or for an indefinite period.
However, the above suggestions seem to be crisis solutions. An optimum solution would involve the development of new regulatory framework for supported housing, covering principles of the construction and development of the resources. The preparation of improved systemic organizational solutions would contribute to a more targeted use of EU funds from the point of view of the new financial perspective until 2020, in which supported housing was indicated as a priority in the area of the implementation of projects using funds from the European Social Fund, and the European Regional Development Fund (Minister of the Infrastructure and Regional Development, 2015, p. 27). This would be highly appropriate for the facilitation of availability of housing stock for a variety of social policy projects, not only “Housing First” programs.”
The analysis used both the experience of the original program developed and described by dr. Sam Tsemberis (Tsemberis, 2010), and subsequent European programs as summarized by Nicolas Pleace (Pleace, 2012) and included in the electronic publication “Najpierw mieszkanie – materiały źródłowe” (Wygnańska, 2014) prepared as a part of the project “Housing First – evidence-based advocacy” under the program “Citizens for Democracy” financed by EEA.
Projekt realizowany przez lidera Fundację Ius Medicinae oraz partnerów Kamiliańską Misję Pomocy Społecznej i Armię Zbawienia w Islandii w Programie Obywatele dla Demokracji finansowanym ze środków EOG
