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 [email protected]
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