- HOGAR SÍ, Provivienda and the Insular Directorate of Social Inclusion (IMAS) present the innovation projects "Housing Rights" and "H4Y FUTURO", which seek to respond to homelessness from a new perspective.
- The presentation ceremony was attended by the president of the Consell de Mallorca, Catalina Cladera and the second vice-president of IMAS, Magdalena Gelabert. On behalf of the entities, Dámaris Barajas, Director of Planning of Provivienda and Maribel Ramos, Deputy Director General of HOGAR SÍ .
- 160 homeless people will participate in Mallorca in the two innovation projects presented.
HOGAR SÍ and Provivienda, thanks to the financing of the funds Next Generation EU funds from the Plan for Recovery, Transformation and Resilience of the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, have launched two innovation projects "Housing Rights" and "H4Y FUTURE". Both are aimed at implementing an accompaniment model that promotes the deinstitutionalization processes of people experiencing homelessness. With these projects, thanks to the participation of the Insular Direction of Social Inclusion of IMAS, the aim is to transform public policies for the care of homeless people during the next 3 years in Mallorca. In the rest of Spain, 11 other public administrations have become involved in these projects where a total of 1,289 people will participate in, in addition to the island of Mallorca, seven other cities: Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Murcia, Gijón, Cartagena and Avilés.
The projects "Housing Rights" and "H4Y FUTURE" have the fundamental objective of transforming the network of attention to homelessness in Mallorca by providing solutions adapted to each person for the safe and chosen transition to a life in community. "Housing Rights" seeks to promote the development of deinstitutionalization policies, as well as the prevention of institutionalization. In other words, it seeks to promote changes in the traditional response system to the problem of homelessness: moving from care in large centers and shelters to care in community housing. For its part, H4Y FUTURO proposes to respond to the challenge posed by youth homelessness through a pilot project to test the implementation of the methodology Housing First for Youth methodology in our country, and generate data to obtain rigorous and objective evidence for the development of new public policies.
The idea, explained the president of the Consell de Mallorca, Catalina Cladera, "is to transform the network of care for homelessness in Mallorca, with solutions tailored to each person to promote a transition to community life in an individualized and safe way. And with these two programs we reinforce the work of IMAS in the fight against the chronification of these situations." "We are one of the communities most involved in changing the model of care" Cladera pointed out. "Everyone has the right to decent housing and, from the Consell, we seek the solution that each of us would like the administration to provide, working from the unity of all the actors involved to ensure that these solutions are real, effective and fast" she said.
On the one hand, the H4Y FUTURO initiative, aimed at people between 18 and 25 years of age, addresses the challenge of youth homelessness with specific actions according to the needs of each person. It is based on the Housing First model, which IMAS launched five years ago and which facilitates social insertion through access to housing. With a budget of more than €1,200,000, this program first provides residential stabilization, while offering support and technical advice to promote the social and labor autonomy of young people in a situation of homelessness.
"One of the objectives is to promote maximum autonomy and decisive power over the life plan of the people who participate, while seeking to combat the chronification of homelessness on the island, through support and the necessary tools to achieve full social inclusion," said the second vice president of IMAS, Magdalena Gelabert.
For Maribel Ramos, deputy director of HOGAR SÍ, "this is a unique opportunity to generate new solutions to help solve the problem of homelessness. The Consell's commitment favors a necessary transformation process of the system, putting housing and people at the center of the solution".
On the other hand, the "Housing Rights" program, financed with nearly 1,000,000 euros, aims to lay the foundations of a new social policy that promotes a more personalized attention through housing in neighborhood communities, in order to avoid the institutionalization of the problem. It also proposes the development of specific actions according to the needs of each participant, such as direct aid, accompaniment and support in administrative and digital tasks, or early care for those who have been homeless for less than three months.
Within this program, the Insular Directorate of Social Inclusion of IMAS has launched, in collaboration with the Insular Directorates of Social and Health Care and Community Care and Strategic Projects, a pilot plan of Housing for the Elderly. Mallorca is the only territory that applies this program modality. It is expected that between 12 and 14 homeless people over 65 years of age will participate, on a completely voluntary basis, and will be offered the possibility of living in shared housing and to develop their daily lives in a safe, communal, dignified and independent environment.
In this regard, Dámaris Barajas, Provivienda's planning director, explained that "it is important to take advantage of the opportunity provided by these projects and the current financing context to develop public policies that consolidate housing as a right for all, leaving no one behind".
Since 2017, HOGAR SÍ and Provivienda have joined forces to develop the model. Housing First based housing solutions in Spain. The objectives of this Alliance are threefold:
- Generate a dynamic of development of the model in Spain, respecting the fidelity of the original model.
- Intensify the separation between housing and treatment of people.
- Incorporate other organizations for the development of the model in territories where other entities interested in joining and following the methodology are identified.
HOGAR SÍ is a social, non-profit, independent, plural and statewide entity, created in 1998. We are convinced that it is possible to end homelessness and we believe in the responsibility of facing the problem from the society, putting the focus on the problem and not on the person who suffers it.
Provivienda is a non-profit association that has been working since 1989 so that everyone can enjoy the right to housing on equal terms. From our association we want to offer housing that changes lives and creates community, responding to the residential needs, especially of people in more difficult situations.
