Kuopio 12-14 October 2007

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Strategies to Reduce Homelessness in FinlandPeter Fredriksson

Seminar on Nordic Research on Homelessness

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Goals and Results

Main target to reduce the number of homeless people

from 10 000 to 8000 in 2005 (achieved)

4000 new/renovated/purchased appartments 2002-2005 (3500 achieved)

Support services (only partly achieved)

Goals were split between cities and non-profit producers (only Helsinki City achieved goals)

Supply of building sites (only partly achieved)

Increase in the supply of small flats (achieved in the state subsidized production)

Reform of norms in housing allowance to promote the accomodation of homeless persons (not achieved)

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Goals and results

New grant for the production, renovation and purchase of

appartments for special groups, inc homeless (implemented 2005)

State subsidized loans for purchase of rented buildings for the

accomodation of homeless people (implemented 2004, not used)

Grants of the Slots Machine Association (1.5 meuro/year) (implemented)

Focus on prevention (housing advice a success, not otherwise)

Homelessness as an integral part of the national activities to

prevent poverty and social exclusion (more theory than practice)

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Goals and results

Pilot projects (innovations in housing advice)

Quality standards for emergency accomodation (under preparation)

Co-operation between municipalities in the capital region (from occasional to systematic)

Common work practices between housing and social and health care administration (little progress)

New networks between public, private and third sectors (very few)

Research (special groups inside homeless, support models)

Follow-up (systematic, evaluation)

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Innovation – how does it diiffer from normal renewal ?

Innovation is something carried on into practice

Innovation is something which is reproducible

Innovation leads other actors to follow

Innovation represents a discontinuous change

(Schumpeter, Toivonen et.al)

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Market

Stable, well defined value system

Established value system, incremental improvements

Emerging value system, radical changes

Innovations in housing and built environment

Culture

Technology Social Space Concepts Drivers

Actors

Value system continuum

Institutions,organizations

Firms Planners Individuals,Groups

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Multiformity illustrates the widely differing interests, values and organizational characteristics in the network. It can manifest itself both between and within actors. Due to the relative independence of the actors multiformity can form an obstacle to the network (unilateral influence) or offer new possibilities to the network ( reinforcing competence)

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Closedness stems from the frame of reference of the player based on core values. In a way it measures the sensitiveness of the player in the network to external/internal steering signals (they can be resisted/ignored/approved).

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Interdependencies develop via the distribution of resources among a large number of actors. Interdependencies can be multilateral (more than two parties mutually dependent), asynchronous (dependencies between players differ over time) and successive (first A is dependent on B, then B is dependent on A).

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De Bruijn and Ten Heuvelhof identify several steering strategies (direct or indirect; generic or fine-tuning; planned or unpredictable; unilateral or multilateral; steering as a network management; steering as a network constitution) They also distinguish following steering instruments (multilateral; person-specific; incentives; performance indicators; communication).

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Firstly, the networks of the actors dealing with homelessness consist of public, semi-public and private players with wide differences of values, organizational forms and policy targets between and within actors (multiformity).

The main results in reducing homelessness in Finland was achieved with a combination of state initiatives (high political commitment), co-operation between municipalities in the capital region and the new players of social housing producers and NGOs.

At the same time, the traditional social housing producers with large rental housing stock could not be involved although they operate under same tenant allocation rules as the whole social housing sector.

Different approaches to homelessness could be also discerned within both central and local administrations of housing provision and social and health services.

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Secondly, the state administration has moved during couple of decades from imperative to more volational steering strategies in influencing local authorities. This is implemented by allocating state budget resources to municipalities, which set the priorities of target groups of housing and social and health care provision.

The municipalities should act according to the legislation, but in reality there is – in case of homeless and other excluded persons - increasing tensions between the policy target of state (equal treatment) and municipalities (competition of residents and tax income). This has been one of the background factors that several governments from the end of 1980s' has used specific steering instruments to reduce homelessness (incentives like state loans, interest subsidies, grants).

In the program to reduce homelessness in the capital region (2002-2005) the government negotiated an agreement with other players (municipalities, service providers, NGOs) but only partial result could be achieved due to lack of commitment especially from the political electorate in the municipalities.

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Lastly, as already mentioned the most important conclusion of the current programs has been that the focus of the future work should be in tackling long-term homeless with several groups of severe and multiple problems.

The reason behind the neglect of this group is not only the lack of resources but also lack of innovative players in the field. Most of the networks produce established and overlapping solutions, which does not affect homeless groups with multiple problems.

Some examples of radical innovations have come up (like low threshold services for hiv-patients), but this has had only marginal effect on mainstream housing and housing related social and health care provision.