- HOGAR SÍ and Provivienda present the first and most comprehensive evaluation of Housing First in Spain, developed by the Complutense University of Madrid and the consulting firm Fresno. at European level, developed by the Complutense University of Madrid and the Fresno consulting firm.
- Housing First has a similar cost to its traditional alternatives, but offers far superior results in the areas analyzed compared to traditional care alternatives.
- Housing First is cost-effective, that is, it is a methodology to which it is efficient to dedicate funding.
- The evaluation shows that at 18 months 96.6% of people remain in stable housing through Habitat.
Madrid, May 25, 2021. HOGAR SÍ and Provivienda have presented this morning the evaluation 'Solutions to homelessness: Evaluation of the Housing First methodology in Spain' developed during 18 months by the Complutense University of Madrid and the consulting firm Fresno.
Today, it is estimated that there are between 30,000 and 40,000 people in a situation of homelessness in Spain and that 12.6% of the population has had their right to housing violated at some point in their lives.
Housing First is a social intervention methodology that breaks with the traditional care model and provides homeless people with individual, stable and independent housing. The first evaluation of this model in Spain, and the most comprehensive at European level, has shown that it is an efficient and effective solution to reduce the problem of homelessness.
Main results
The first evaluation of the Housing First methodology in Spain offers important results on the changes produced in people who have stopped living on the street to have direct access to individual and stable housing.
In general, and in line with the different studies published internationally, the evaluation shows that people living in Housing First housing show better results in all the dimensions evaluated than people living on the street or in other spaces such as shelters and emergency shelters. The main indicator of success of the program, as established internationally, has to do with the level of housing retention, which in the case of Spain is 96%. In other words, almost all of the people who access housing remain in it after 18 months.
The evaluation shows that Housing First succeeds in providing stable and safe housing for people in standardized housing in community settings. An improvement that does not occur among those served in the traditional system of care. Of the latter, half of them indicated the street, an emergency shelter or a shelter as their usual place of residence at 18 months. In contrast, Housing First solves the main problem for which it is designed, that of getting people off the street and into a home. At six months, there is already a significant improvement in their life satisfaction, and they are happier and more satisfied with their privacy. People who have Housing First housing report a clear reduction in pain, loneliness, anxiety and depression, and feel more protected from discrimination and victimization.
The Housing First model in Spain also offers economic advantages. The evaluation shows that these solutions have a cost per place similar to that of shelters or group housing, but offer much better benefits for users in terms of stability and quality of housing and personalized assistance. In addition, they tend to reduce costs, while their alternatives increase them.
This demonstrates that the Housing First model is cost-effective. That is, it is a quality institutional response(good value for money) to which it is efficient to dedicate funding, with an important comparative advantage over other alternatives. From HOGAR SÍ and Provivienda, which have maintained an alliance since 2017 for the implementation of the Housing First model in Spain, it is considered that homelessness is a housing problem and that not having a home is the culminating point of residential vulnerability processes that affect an increasing part of the population.
Housing First had already proven to be an effective methodology in other European countries such as Finland. Although in Spain it is still a minority, its implementation began in 2014 by the hand of HOGAR SÍ, and with the alliance formed with Provivienda in 2017, it already has 287 homes in 8 Autonomous Communities.
This evaluation was carried out in 12 cities (Alicante, Avilés, Arona, Barcelona, Córdoba, Coslada, Donosti, Madrid, Móstoles, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Seville and Zaragoza). A total of 255 people participated in the study, divided into two independent groups, an experimental group and a control group, which ensures its academic rigor. The people in both groups were interviewed at the beginning, at 12 months and at 18 months.
Since 2017, Provivienda and HOGAR SÍ have maintained an alliance to develop the Housing First model with a fundamental objective, to scale this model in Spain, and to take advantage of the specialization of both entities to strengthen the model.
Provivienda is a non-profit organization that has been working for social and residential inclusion in Spain since 1989, whose goal is to enable everyone to enjoy the right to housing.
HOGAR YES is a social initiative, non-profit, independent and plural, statewide created in 1998, which exists to ensure that no person lives on the street.
