The Next Generation funds have been accompanied by the word innovation. These funds were conceived as an opportunity to reflect, to consider what kind of Europe we want to build in the long term after the pandemic and to put these ideas into practice.
In the day-to-day design and implementation of social policies, it is not always easy to stop and rethink the responses being given by administrations and third sector entities to phenomena such as, in our case, homelessness. However, it is necessary. In order to achieve the transformation in a systemic way towards the Europe we want, it is vital to be able to think outside the current frameworks, imagine new horizons and propose what steps we need to take to get there. To approach challenges in a different way in order to find different solutions. This is what we mean by innovation.
For this reason, the pilot social innovation projects Housing Rights and H4Y FUTURO have taken advantage of this window of opportunity provided by the Next Generation funds and have begun to rethink the responses that are currently being given to some phenomena such as homelessness, and to propose programs and alliances that will finally succeed in eradicating homelessness. In short, to structurally transform the traditional model of care that has been developed until now.
In this path that we started a few months ago and that will last until December 2024, we are innovating in all areas: betting on innovative methodologies as we did with Housing First, collaborating with public administrations not only in the day-to-day running of the projects but also with specific training programs for professionals, implementing new ways of working, transforming the organizational culture of the ecosystem, but mainly placing the client, the person in a situation of homelessness, at the center.
Innovative methodologies based on Housing First and with support for autonomy.
The projects are based on the Housing First methodology, a methodology implemented more than twenty years ago in the United States, and which the alliance formed by HOGAR SÍ and Provivienda developed in Spain, is based on the principle that housing is a fundamental human right. With this approach, access to stable and safe housing becomes the first step for homeless people to start developing their life project from a safe and stable position.
Housing First has proven to be a successful methodology for achieving the recovery of homeless people, their autonomy, their health and, ultimately, their life projects. But this methodology has also proven to be much more economically efficient than the traditional system of care for homelessness based on shelters and collective housing, since in the medium term it manages to increase people's autonomy and consequently reduce the number of people in a situation of homelessness.
What is innovative about the two projects? We add a person-centered model of accompaniment that provides personalized support and services to meet the individual needs of each person participating in the program. In this way, since it is the person who designs his or her own supports, he or she is able to create an itinerary adapted to his or her desires and needs.
Training professionals as a lever for change
One of the key issues for an innovative project to be successful is that the professionals themselves know how to innovate and become agents of this change. That is why one of the axes that we have launched from Housing Rights and H4Y FUTURO is vital: the upskilling and reskilling process together with public administrations. This consists of training and communication of tools and new methodologies to all the professionals involved in the projects and those who work in the different resources for the care of homeless people. In the development process of the projects, the different professionals who participate or interact with them take part in different training activities and professional scaling towards professional practices oriented towards deinstitutionalization, rights and autonomy of people.
In the course of these activities, very interesting initiatives are being developed such as the co-creation of certain documents and proposals such as, for example, the workshop that was held between project professionals and various administrations for the development of recommendations to the National Strategy for Homeless People (2023-2030). During these sessions, in addition to working on proposals, a very positive exchange of experiences and knowledge is generated, aligned with the perspective of innovation, thinking about more distant horizons.
New ways of working: an innovative ecosystem
In order to achieve successful innovation, it is not possible to take the same steps that have been taken previously. For this reason, the culture of the entities, the design and methodology of the work, has also been created from an innovative logic. The ecosystem created to connect the professionals participating in the projects, the administrations and the partners, aims to bring together the different visions of all the actors and, as mentioned above, to favor co-creation from different perspectives. The ecosystem does not obey a classic hierarchical structure, but is organized by interrelated tables, each of which is the driving force for the implementation of a project axis. These tables are not watertight compartments, but people with different profiles and specialties are part of them, so that when it comes to finding solutions, the answers provided by the ecosystem have managed to bring together different points of view.
Innovate to get it right
These pilot projects cannot transform the entire homelessness system, nor is that their goal. It may seem unambitious, but the reality is that, in developing an innovation project, what is being done is to test an idea. Thus, in Housing Rights and H4Y FUTURO, the main objective is to gather evidence that this model works in order to be able to transfer it to administrations, public decision-makers and any agent committed to the eradication of homelessness. With this evidence and results we will be ready, then yes, to undertake a radical transformation that bets on a new comprehensive model and at all administrative levels to eradicate homelessness in our country in the coming years.
Alicia García Rodríguez-Marín, public policy transformation process technician.
