This is the opinion of Ask Svejstrup, head of the secretariat of the National Organization of the Homeless (Sand).
– In principle, everyone will be able to be helped with this model if you provide enough housing support and provide the right support after a thorough investigation of the individual, he says.
Housing first means that a homeless person is first offered housing. Then you start helping the person who, for example, has mental problems.
The model is especially good for the homeless who have not been homeless for too long, says Ask Svejstrup.
– It is typically the young people who have not been homeless for many years and who do not have such extensive problems who are best helped.
– On the other hand, those who have been homeless for a long time and need a massive effort will be harder to help, he says.
Although Ask Svejstrup’s hopes for the spread of housing first in Denmark are high, he fears that there is a group of ten percent that the municipalities will find it more difficult to help with the model.
Here he points out that not all homeless people will benefit from living in their own apartment, but rather need other housing offers.
– For example, old institutional children or previously placed people do not necessarily get a good life from living in an apartment for themselves. Here they can benefit more from living with others but still have a privacy.
– We need to invent that form of housing, so it is still missing, he says.
In addition, Ask Svejstrup proposes that more 108 housing offers be secured. These are alternative nursing homes that are given to those who have had a long life in homelessness and need a nursing home place with extra support.
Source: The Nordic Page