At the beginning of 2024, the Housing School was launched as a free training platform by HOGAR SÍ and Provivienda with the aim of transforming the approach to homelessness. Currently, around 600 people are part of this constantly growing educational community, where much of the learning and knowledge acquired in the Housing Rights and H4Y FUTURO programs is shared publicly. Both social innovation projects receive funding from European Next Generation funds through the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030 and the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.
The main objective of the Housing School is to promote the transformation towards deinstitutionalization with the change of public policies, offering accompaniment strategies that promote autonomy and community life for homeless people.
The tools shared by the technical team in charge of developing these courses are yielding evident results, as could be seen at the I Jornada Soluciones al Sinhogarismo held recently. Among the most outstanding achievements are the improvement of people's mental health and the increase in employability. An important part of these solutions, especially their fundamental principles, can already be studied at the Housing School.
A wide range of courses to address homelessness in a comprehensive manner
The Housing School catalog now offers a selection of 6 courses, each with a duration of approximately 6 hours and the option to earn a certificate upon completion. These courses address a variety of essential topics:
- Key concepts and elements for deinstitutionalization.
- Inter-administrative and inter-sectoral approach to address homelessness with a non-institutionalizing response.
- The strengths approach as an accelerator of autonomy processes.
- Person-centered approach.
- Introduction to the Self-Directed Supports model and customized budgets (recently added).
- Regulatory and strategic framework. Reinforcement and barrier policies (recently added).
In an effort to expand the scope of training, the Housing School has initiated a series of face-to-face seminars open to the entire community. On February 1, the first of these began at the Complutense University of Madrid. These sessions are based on the courses available online, but the face-to-face format allows for the integration of other learning models. In these first sessions, students were able to deepen their understanding of the concept of deinstitutionalized care in the field of homelessness and the person-centered and community living approach.
Also, on March 22, the H4Y FUTURO team, in collaboration with the Housing Rights team, gave a face-to-face training on the Trauma Approach to the technical team of both projects and the Barcelona City Council.
A community made up of public administrations, third sector organizations and professionals from the academic world.
Although the Housing School has its roots in the innovation projects of the Provivienda-HOGAR SÍ alliance, its vision extends beyond, inviting external teams and entities to participate in its evolution. Enrollment data reflect a wide acceptance among public administrations, social entities, universities, training centers and private sector professionals, thus underlining its relevance and scope.
Judging by the first wave of registrations, the tool is being very well received by local and state public administrations (18.27% of registrations), social entities (51.92%, including Alliance teams) and universities and training centers (7.93%). In addition, the Housing School is reaching out to private sector companies (5.29%) and other professionals (16.59%). Overall, to date, 49% of the Housing School's students are agents of change external to HOGAR SÍ and Provivienda.
For those interested in following the new training proposals and the progress of the platform, it is recommended to complete the Housing School registration. As part of the community, you will receive information about updates and new horizons of this training strategy to end homelessness.
