Press Release

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UNECE workshop assesses homelessness and advocates prevention as the most effective solution

Geneva, 26 May 2009 --

The number of homeless people is estimated to be in the thousands in the Scandinavian countries (e.g. Finland and Norway), in the tens of thousands in other Western industrialized countries (e.g. Italy and the United Kingdom), and in the millions in the countries of Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Homelessness, a complex phenomenon, is generally defined as an extreme form of deprivation of a basic human need: the right to shelter. However, when it comes to identifying vulnerable groups in the region covered by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the definition of a homeless person differs from country to country. While there is agreement that rough sleepers are homeless, it is not always clear that homeless people living with family or friends can also be counted as targets for public action. Public authorities’ task is complicated by the fact that statistics based on censuses are only an estimate of the dimension of the problem at a given point in time. Thus they cannot account for short-term variations due to contextual factors, such as increases in the number of evictions, family breakdowns or other shocks related to sudden changes in the housing market in times of recession.

At a workshop organized by the Norwegian State Housing Bank under the aegis of UNECE (Oslo, 18–19 May 2009) government officials, civil society organizations and experts from academia examined the current challenges public authorities are facing. Participants discussed different approaches to combating homelessness based on country experiences and the advice of experts, including former users of shelter services.

The workshop emphasized that there is an urgent need for policy action involving not only national housing authorities, but also municipalities, social affairs authorities, the private sector and civil society. The experts also stressed that the best solutions are found in well designed preventive measures. These should aim at reducing the number of first-time “homeless” people and increasing the level of successful reinsertion for vulnerable groups through “housing first” schemes that provide an alternative to temporary shelters. Housing policy should also be combined with focalized social assistance to prevent re-lapse into homelessness. Finally, cost-effectiveness should also be promoted, with a focus on the rapid reinsertion of individuals in their social milieux, an approach compatible with different housing systems (rental or ownership), when and wherever they can contribute to the empowerment of disadvantaged groups.

The recommendations of the Oslo workshop will be summarized and discussed during the seventieth session of the Committee on Housing and Land Management in Geneva in September 2009.

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Ref: ECE/ENV/09/P12