Lars Benjaminsen

The Danish National Center for Social Research

Capacity-building of local services to implement

Housing First

Danish homelessness strategy 2009-2013 and

follow-up programme 2014-2016

• Housing First as overall principle

• Test whether Housing First works well in a Danish context

• Develop evidence based floating support methods -

Assertive Community Treatment, Intensive Case

Management, Critical Time Intervention

• Implement a mindshift away from Housing Ready approach

to Housing First

• 17 municipalitites participated in 2009-2013 programme

• 23 participates in follow-up programme – ‘Implementation

and anchoring programme’.

Recovery and empowerment focus

• Early stabilization of housing situation with intensive support

facilitates recovery

• Citizen’s perspective – what can we do for you? How can

we help you?

• Assertive dialogue – the support worker gives input based

on empathy and professional competences

• Strength-based approach – building on resources,

capacities

• Strengthening the citizens life situation in a range of

domains – housing, economy, health, activities, social

network etc.

The organization of the provision of

housing and support

• Denmark has a large public housing sector – 20 % of total

housing stock. ½ million units in a population of 5,5 mill.

people (open to all through waiting lists regardless of

income level)

• Municipalities can allocate 1 in 4 vacancies in public

housing to people in acute housing need – e.g. single

mothers, handicapped, mentally ill, homeless people

• Local social services are anchored in municipalities -

floating support is mainly provided from municipalities.

Floating support programme

• Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) Multidiciplinary

support team – social support workers, nurse, psychiatrist,

addiction treatment specialist, social office worker, job office

worker

• Intensive Case Management (ICM) Case manager –

social and practical support and coordination of use of other

services

• Critical Time Intervention (CTI) Time-limited case

management (9 months) – social and practical support and

coordination of use of other services. 3 systematic phases

Very positive results – Housing First works

• Housing First works for most homeless people – 9 out of 10 who were

housed maintained their housing (About 1000 people were housed

through the programme

• People whom we never thought could have been housed have been

housed

• We cannot predict in advance who will fail

• Independent scattered housing in ordinary housing is better for most

homeless people

• Problems with congregate housing - often conflicts arise amongst

residents, noise, environnement of addiction problems making

recovery difficult

The follow up programme (2014-2016)

• Extend the housing first model to more municipalities

• More focus on training of social workers

• More focus on implementation processes

• Fidelity measurement

• Manualisation of interventions

• A specific youth programme – adapting floating support

methods specifically to young homeless people

Training and manualisation

• Training was underemphasised in the first programme

• The follow-up programme will have a stronger training

component – Trainers from the National Board of Social

Welfare will train local social workers in the floating support

methods

• Train the trainer courses (TTT-courses) are held

• Manualisation – very specific manuals on how to conduct

the support – underlying principles, how to approach the

citizen, key tasks, phases (CTI), multidiscplinary work

(ACT), support in key life domains (housing, economy,

health, activities, social network). Checklists.

• Supported by web based tools

Further information

• Lars Benjaminsen lab@sfi.dk

The Danish National Center of Social Research

• European Journal of Homelessness, Volume 7 (2):

Policy Review Up-date: Results from the Housing First

based Danish Homelessness Strategy