Brno received an European award for providing the best housing solution for homeless people. Photo: @BrnoDaily
Brno, Oct 13 (BD) – The Brno project Rapid Re-Housing was awarded in the competition of European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA).
The project Rapid Re-Housing aims to find permanent and cheap solution for fifty families in need of a better home due to the poor living conditions they have been living in.
Involved families were selected in June 2017 out of 421 households with minors, many of whom were forced to live separately from their families.
Sixteen families that eventually decided to participate in the project were living in asylums, low-standard housings and hostels before Rapid Re-Housing.
The Rapid Re-Housing’s success rate is currently about 94%, which is comparable and slightly higher than results of other European projects that address housing distress, the official statement of Brno Municipality reads.
“When we lived in the hostel, my daughter seldom communicated, she was still quiet… she was just looking at you. Now that we have an apartment, she began to talk, she had her own room and surprised me a lot in the best way: she began to communicate, she learns, she is happier,” one of the project participants says.
One of the project goals is to understand if providing these families with long-term, safe and dignified living conditions improves their health and decrease problems as children’s poor educational achievements.
Brno Municipality will publish a comprehensive report on project’s results in the summer of 2018.
Rapid Re-Housing project is financially supported by European funds and was created in a partnership between Brno City Council, IQ Roma Service, z. s. and the University of Ostrava.
The Czech Government is committed find a solution to this urgent socio-economic problem.
The government set the goal to move over 6.000 families in the country from hostels and asylums to houses by 2020.
In January 2017, the government promised that from 2020 on, no children will have to stay more than a month in a hostel.
