In conjunction with Trinity College School of Social Work and Social Policy, Focus Ireland would like to invite you to an evening talk on Finland's experience of Housing First.
What if we turned all emergency homeless beds into real accommodation?
How many homeless beds does a city need? And should they be dormitories, shared or single rooms with their own lockable door?
These questions have been hotly debated in the context of rising homelessness, hundreds of new emergency beds being commissioned and the recent occupation of Apollo House. What if the answer is 'none' . No emergency beds. Only homes.
Over recent years Helsinki- and the whole of Finland, has gone through the process of closing all their emergency homeless beds and replacing them with actual homes for the people who need them. Changes like this are not easy to achieve.
Finland had to make hundreds more homes available and also needed to provide a lot of tenancy support to help people sustain their new home. This is the Finnish version of Housing First and it has transformed the way in which people who become homeless are treated in Finland.
What can Dublin learn from this experience? Could we do it here? Helsinki is a similar size to Dublin (just over half a million people- Should we follow their path? And what would we need to do to achieve it?
Juha Kaakinen, the Director of the Y-Foundation, the Finnish organisation which spearheaded this radical transformation of homeless services will be addressing a public meeting in Dublin on the 8th February at 6.30pm in the Royal Irish Academy, 19 Dawson Street.
The Chair of the Y-Foundation, Mr. Matti Harjuiemi, who is also the president of the Trade Union of Finnish Construction Workers, will also speak at the meeting. The meeting is organised by Focus Ireland and the Trinity College School of Social Work and Social Policy.
If you have any queries regarding this event please contact; claire.oneill@focusireland.ie
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