About Catch Homelessness Phase 1 Phase 2 Contact

Started in December 2002 – ended in September 2003 Promoter of the project: City of Södra Innerstaden, City of Malmö, Sweden CATCH: Creative Approach To Combating Homelessness. We have looked at the innovative methods of working with homelessness by selecting methods around Europe that focused on facilitating the life of the homeless persons. By innovative methods, we mean untested, sometimes controversial or difficult to explain. For example: giving e-mail addresses to homeless persons (lifelong learning), Touch Therapy, etc. Why we considered it an urgent or priority issue in terms of eradicating poverty and social exclusion. Homelessness is the bottom of poverty and social exclusion, which makes this a priority issue (COM (2001) 565 final, The Draft Joint Report on Social Inclusion, Chapter 3.1.2.2). Without a home, one cannot find a job, one is physically and psychologically deprived, and mostly, homelessness is one of a multifaceted pattern of problems -— a result from a number of circumstances. Homelessness is also mentioned as one of 8 priority issues in IP/01/1395. In addition, homelessness is the part of poverty that affects children the most – it affects the possibilities for the children to have a good start in life and a healthy study environment. The exposed situation of the homeless is also different for women and men. While men face more physical violence, women face sexual harassment and abuse, also in shelters, by homeless men. Being aware of the different problems of homeless persons regarding to their sex, we tried to have a 50-50 division between innovative methods targeted at both sexes. The outcomes of our project To understand the objective of Phase I, we need to explain the main goal in Phase II. First, we made a goal for our Phase II and then, we thought of what we actually need to do, to achieve the goal. We have so to say “started from the end”. Our general objective in Phase II is thus to spread information to national and European colleagues on the most effective, innovative methods of working with homeless persons, focusing on the needs of this target group. To be able to gather and examine these methods, we needed to assemble information and exchange good practices and knowledge during Phase I. The objectives during Phase I has been to: Gather and exchange good practices, which we did at our first meeting, that took place March 13-15, in the City of Malmö with the participation of following partners: Edinburgh-UK, Turin-Italy, Barcelona-Spain, Vienna-Austria, Bologna-Italy and Manchester-UK. Local press and “Aluma”- a street paper in Malmö, wrote an article each about the meeting. Presentations of NAP:s as well as Community Action Programmes and a selected innovative method from each partner was on the agenda. After discussions the partners present unanimous decided to change the ordinary plan as it was given in the application, concerning the field visits. Edinburgh, UK was selected as a field visit for all as well as for a meeting taking place in order to discuss the contents of the application for Phase 2. The reason for Edinburgh being selected was because of their innovative method in working with homeless women and children . (Please see presentation of methods Edinburgh, UK) Decisions was made as on which method(s) to pass on to national and European colleagues. The methods of Barcelona-Spain (Please see presentation of methods Barcelona, Spain) and Edinburgh-UK, was the two methods to pass as well as to be written in the application for Phase II. A timetable was kept within frames and work plan was set at the meeting in Edinburgh in June 2003, to achieve optimal performance in Phase II. Working methods used to achieve our objectives Written and oral presentations on NAPs, local and European policies, such as the open method of coordination for social exclusion, laws and plans regarding poverty and social exclusion in general and homelessness in particular. Also, an orientation of ongoing and recent projects on the field. Instead of the rotation system of field visits as in the application, it was decided to one field visit for all partners that also served as a combined project meeting. This came out of the conclusion that there was a clear need for yet another meeting and it took place in Edinburgh with the following participates: Malmö-Sweden, Turin-Italy, Bologna-Italy, Vienna-Austria, Poznan-Poland and Edinburgh. The application for Phase II was discussed and decided upon. The decision towards one meeting/field visit was made partly because of the shortage of time, but also because of the interest in the innovative method applied there. This complicated things as to us not being able to share experience and information from several places, but the positive attitude and the cooperation between colleagues as to get the main common values written in the application of Phase II turned out into an advantage for the project as a whole. Mind-mapping, the visit in Edinburgh also brought up different ideas of passing the information to national and European colleagues in both an electronic as well as in printed form as different means of efficient methods in spreading the good practices in Phase II. Please see application for Phase II. Out of experience in transnational projects, we made a big effort in preparing the first meeting, setting aside time in order to get through everyone’s expectations before we started the process, making sure that everyone understood our goals. Yet it became quite difficult and all partners agreed that more time was needed. The results from the exchanges was disseminated through reports and seminars, and no financial resources was allocated in documentation (as in Phase II, if we will have the possibility to proceed). The main focus during Phase I was to build up a knowledge base, as we thought it important in order to form a strong project team. The concrete outputs from our work and the dissemination of the results. A final report has been produced during Phase I. The report aims at the European Commission, NGOs and other actors. It is disseminated by email and published on relevant websites such as Eurocities, FEANTSA and the City of Malmö. Press conferences and seminars around the results has taken place in Malmö, Turin and Edinburgh. In Malmö there was an information meeting exclusively for social workers working with homelessness issues on the 1 of September and in Vienna a short report was send by mail to all institutions working against homelessness in the city and to the municipality. About our partnership The members of the project team are a 50-50 mix of local authorities (municipalities ) and NGOs. 1. City District of Södra Innerstaden, City of Malmö, Sweden 2. Co-operativa Parella, Torino, Italy 3. County of Aarhus, Denmark 4. The Ark Trust, Edinburg, the UK 5. Deelgemeente Charlois, Rotterdam, the Netherlands 6. ADIGSA, Barcelona, Spain 7. Die Heilsarmee, Vienna, Austria 8. Southampton City Council, Southampton, UK 9. Quartiers en Crise, Brussels, Belgium 10. Toucan Europe Ltd, Manchester, the UK 11. Comune di Bologna, Bologna, Italy 12. City of Vantaa, Vantaa, Finland 13. Barka Foundation of Mutual Help, Poznan, Poland (not included financially in Phase I) This partnership has successively transformed from an information exchange-network to a project team. Together, we formed a project, based on the fact that we want to share the knowledge and experience we have, to more actors working with homelessness around Europe. The partners contributed with experiences described in the application. Preparing for Phase 2 The orientation of local policies, NAPs and European policies in the field has helped us identify the right target group to whom we will aim the information that we obtain during Phase I and II. The general objective is to disseminate existing good practices of innovative methods of working with the homeless such as ADIGSA in Barcelona, and The Ark in Edinburgh. Three seminars is to take place in the following cities. Bologna, Italy, Vienna-Austria and Barcelona-Spain in phase II. (Please see application Phase II) Our methods has helped us define a strategy, time plan and invitation of more actors for Phase II. New partners are: Municipality of Varna, Bulgaria, Dublin, Ireland, and Athens, Greece.