Below is a list of workshops and presentations.
France’s Un Chez Soi d’Abord program, launched in 2011 and based on the Pathways to Housing model, has become a cornerstone of the national response to homelessness among people with severe mental health conditions. Following strong outcomes, the program has been progressively scaled up to over 40 cities.
This presentation will explore how France is working to maintain fidelity to Housing First principles while adapting the model to diverse territorial realities. It will highlight tools such as the Housing First Fidelity Scale, the integration of peer support, and intersectoral collaboration.
The session will also present recent developments, including the rollout of Housing First for youth and efforts to design approaches for rural areas. Challenges such as housing access and funding stability will be discussed, with a focus on building sustainable, context-sensitive Housing First systems across Europe.
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This presentation explores the joint delivery of the Housing First programme in Ireland, focusing on the integration of housing and health systems, from national policy to frontline implementation. Drawing on real-time insights, it examines how collaboration between the health and Local Authorities is evolving to meet the complex needs of people experiencing homelessness, including those with substance use issues, disabilities, and mental health challenges.
We will highlight the importance of strategic alignment, shared governance, and data-informed decision-making in sustaining the programme. The session will also explore how feedback from service users, peer workers, and frontline teams is driving ongoing programme development and innovation.
Special attention is given to the role of peer support and lived experience in delivering person-centred, trauma-informed care. This presentation offers practical insights and recommendations for policymakers, service planners, and practitioners involved in the scaling, integration, and future sustainability of Housing First.
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The Norwegian State Housing Bank is the government’s main agency for implementing housing policy, aiming to ensure everyone can live well and safely. In close collaboration with municipalities, Husbanken supports strategic leadership, promotes key social housing success factors, and finances housing solutions for disadvantaged groups such as children, older adults, individuals with substance use/mental health challenges.
Sandnes will share its experience in expanding the Housing First model and FACT teams across the entire municipality. Initially targeted at a small group, the HF approach was extended in 2022 to include all individuals with functional impairments due to substance use and/or mental illness.
Systematic follow-up and allocation of ordinary housing have led to improved stability and quality of life. The presentation will also cover national HF developments, including a network of 25 municipal projects coordinated by NAPHA, a key learning arena that fosters knowledge sharing and innovation across sectors and government levels.
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Housing First, a unit within the social services in the City of Stockholm since 2016, is targeting the most vulnerable individuals with complex needs and long-term homelessness.
With political backing and collaborations, the unit has expanded from 25 to approximately 140 tenants, with promising results: 75% housing stability and improved quality of life.
Inspired by The Pathways Housing First Institute and the Housing first Europe guide, the approach in Stockholm reflects both the opportunities and challenges of adapting Housing First within a Swedish welfare context.
The workshop will inspire and present insights from our implementation, follow-up-methods, and user feedback. Participants will be invited to reflect, share perspectives, and explore how these experiences might inform their own work and contribute to ongoing development
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Research in multiple countries has established that HF is effective at ending homelessness for most people. However, the effectiveness of HF in producing other outcomes including community integration outcomes is less promising. Practitioners and researchers have indicated the need to supplement HF with specific interventions that target community integration. The session will present the findings of pilot project with 24 clients and 15 case managers that focused on the development and implementation of a social prescribing intervention in two HF programs located in Ottawa, Canada. The presentation’s content will include needs assessment findings on which the intervention was developed, identified elements of social prescribing based on a literature review, the role of case managers as navigators, the method for developing a community asset map for social prescribing, the use of a community practice to support case managers’ social prescribing with participants, and the creation of a peer support group for the intervention. Finally, the outcomes associated with the social prescribing intervention will be discussed.
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This presentation explores client disengagement from Ireland's Housing First programme using a mixed-methods action research design. Findings are drawn from qualitative interviews with 29 participants and a service provider survey of 106 respondents, comprising NGO, housing, and clinical staff, and individuals with lived experience. Disengagement is conceptualised as a spectrum, ranging from intermittent contact to complete withdrawal, influenced by systemic, service, programme, community, and client-level factors. Findings identify systemic pressures, staff turnover, complex client needs (including dual and triple diagnoses), programme drift, and limited wraparound supports as key drivers of disengagement. Community-level challenges such as substance use, ‘gatecrashing’, and social isolation also undermine sustained engagement. Facilitators include ‘staff stickability’, disengagement protocols, re-engagement strategies, pragmatic supports, and cross-sectoral collaboration. Highlighting both systemic barriers and effective responses, the research offers actionable insights for European HF providers seeking to strengthen client engagement, enhance programme fidelity, and improve long-term housing outcomes for highly-complex populations.
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This hands-on workshop introduces creative tools that help professionals actively translate Housing First principles into daily practice. Developed by the Housing First Center of Expertise, the tools include serious games and interactive methods addressing common challenges such as nuisance, loneliness, and complex client situations.
In the first half of the session, participants will learn how the tools were developed, how the Center of Expertise operates, and how real-life experience and collaboration with frontline workers shape innovation. In the second half, participants will engage with several tools themselves—experiencing firsthand how game-based and creative formats enhance reflection, decision-making, and support strategies. Participants will leave with practical ideas they can apply in their own teams and services.
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This paper distils nine key lessons emerging from a major independent evaluation of Scotland’s recent ‘Pathfinder’ Housing First programme which scaled up Housing First provision in five areas and housed 579 people experiencing homelessness and so-called ‘complex needs’ over a three-year period. It will focus on the Pathfinder’s achievements and limitations, together with factors facilitating and inhibiting Housing First mobilisation and mainstreaming. At least some, if not all, of the lessons learned are likely to resonate in other countries aiming to embed and/or expand Housing First provision. The paper concludes that the level of political commitment the approach has commanded up until this point must be maintained, and fidelity to the core principles preserved, if Scotland’s avowed status as a Housing First ‘pioneer’ is to be retained going forward.
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Join us for an informative session on Housing First for Youth (HF4Y), a youth-centered, rights-based approach to youth homelessness. This presentation will cover the core principles of HF4Y, its adaptation of the Housing First model to meet the specific needs of youth aged 16-24, and how it emphasizes immediate housing access, education, employment, and natural supports.
Key topics include:
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Based on our 15 years of experience in housing first, we consider that the core principles of independent, scattered and permanent housing, are essential to promote full community integration. Living in independent housing provides a sense of security, privacy, identity, and ownership, facilitates the involvement in community activities and the contacts with neighbors, contributing for a sense of community belonging. Scatter the apartments throughout different neighborhoods, not concentrating them in the same building or on the same street, prevents the phenomena of segregation and stigmatization and promotes better opportunities for community integration. Permanent housing makes it possible to create a stable and secure base for recovering citizenship. In this presentation we will develop these guiding principles of intervention and share lessons learned based on our ongoing evaluation on community integration.
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Housing First teams often encounter a wide range of animals in the homes of the people they support, from maggots to Great Danes. This is a unique aspect of the work: entering someone’s home, often for an hour, without knowing in advance who or what will be there.
While animals are not the primary focus of support work, they can quickly dominate the space — both physically and emotionally. Unlike human-related issues, which are well documented and discussed, animals often remain a blind spot in professional practice.
In these situations, workers try to remain professional while managing their own fears, experiences and values.
This reality stretches the usual support framework to include concerns related to animal welfare, neglect, legal responsibilities and staff safety.
Grounded in a recent publication, this workshop aims to open a space for dialogue and reflection around these often-overlooked but essential questions in Housing First practice.
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This hands-on learning lab will show how and why shaping positive narratives in public conversations about Housing First are critical to its success. We will show participants how they can shape narratives that influence mindsets and build support for Housing First as a primary solution to solve homelessness. Participants will work on creating narratives and stories that move people from ambivalence about Housing First to action.
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Housing First has developed in parallel to the broader homelessness system in England. This approach has led to some amazing achievements, including the development of approx. 150 services, supporting 1000s of people out of homelessness and into support and recovery. However, there are also endless challenges, including the threat of funding sunsets, a shortage of affordable and appropriate housing and the fragmentation of our health, housing and social care systems. This presentation will explore the crossroads we find ourselves at in England and explore the 'what next' question for Housing First. As we apply the lessons learnt and consider the broader systemic changes which are needed to truly end homelessness, can we move from a system of impermanence to one of permanence, and embrace a philosophy of housing, first?
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This workshop will present a best practice toolkit to support developing the implementation of harm reduction practices within Housing First. The toolkit has been developed alongside support workers, managers, and people supported through Housing First by Simon Community Scotland (SCS); data were collected through focus groups and surveys, alongside a literature review. A co-production ethos was used throughout the toolkit development.
The toolkit explores the theoretical and practical steps of embedding one of the core pillars of Housing First support. Important themes for successful harm reduction are presented: organisational buy-in from care providers; community adoption of harm reduction; person-centred care; and trusting relationships. Key strategies for reducing substance-use related, and other potential harms (e.g. gambling, hoarding) through the Housing First pathway are then provided, as well as workforce training needs. Finally, the importance of applying the Housing First principles, including harm reduction, irrespective of accommodation type, is posed.
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The introduction of the Housing First approach in Germany came relatively late, compared with other European countries, but with a remarkable dynamic. First debates about “doing it already” and “cannot do it because of the lack of housing” have been overcome and the approach is now widely accepted as part of a differentiated support system for homeless people. Still most of the around 50 different housing first projects are funded as pilots for a limited period. The presentation will inform about the target groups, strategies to procure housing, staff issues, the main types of support provided, and about the efforts and challenges for scaling up Housing First in Germany.
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Since 2019, peer workers have been formally employed in Vienna’s homeless services. People who have experienced homelessness themselves and have completed the certificate course "Peers in Homeless Services" are a permanent part of the Housing First teams at neunerhaus, bringing the valuable perspective of reflective experiential knowledge.
This interactive workshop introduces the training program for peer workers at the neunerhaus Peer Campus and explores their specific roles within the Housing First context. Participants will gain practical insights into the qualification process and the impact of peer work.
The workshop will address the following questions:
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Housing First for Women is more than a social project—it is a feminist shift in perspective. The Berlin-based model by the SkF challenges dominant narratives: homelessness is not personal failure, but a result of structural inequality and patriarchal violence. For seven years, the project has been successfully placing women into safe, permanent housing—unconditionally and without forcing adaptation. With a housing stability rate of 90%, it proves that trust works better than control.
HFF makes visible what has long been invisible: female homelessness, often shaped by violence, poverty, and exclusion. The key to a home becomes more than just a tool—it becomes a symbol of freedom, security, autonomy, healing.
This talk shows how HF challenges power structures, breaks stigmas, and supports women discovering their own “superpowers.” It’s not about top-down charity, but about real participation and reclaiming space. A bold model that inspires new pathways in homelessness services—feminist, radical, and effective.
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Rent arrears are among the most common causes of housing loss—even within the Housing First model. To proactively address this, neunerhaus and neunerimmo developed a structured rent monitoring system. By working closely with landlords and social workers, this system helps identify early warning signs and initiates targeted interventions. The presentation outlines how this ongoing process functions, the technical and organizational structures behind it, and how collaboration is managed. Case examples will illustrate its impact, challenges, and limitations.
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In this interactive workshop, we will present the LGBTQIA+-specific Housing First program from Schwulenberatung Berlin—Europe’s largest queer NGO. Using a responsive “fishbowl” discussion format, experts from Housing First Queer will explore key topics such as healthcare access, gender transition, peer support, community-building, discrimination, and cross-organizational collaboration. Together with participants, we’ll dive deeper into practical challenges and share innovative approaches. This session offers a unique opportunity to exchange best practices and develop strategies for inclusive housing and support for queer individuals, while building valuable networks.
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In this two-part workshop, we will address the question of how Housing First can be sustainably and legally financed – particularly in light of the current status under funding law, the positive experiences with its transition into support under Sections 67 of the Social Code XII (SGB XII), and the current discussions on integrating support services in combination with integration assistance. In the first part of the workshop, we will examine existing financing models and the connection between Housing First and other support systems, especially integration assistance. Jutta Henke from GISS will provide a scientifically grounded overview of the current state of Housing First financing in Germany. Anne Blankemeyer, project leader at Housing First Bremen until 2021 and an experienced practitioner in integration assistance, will contextualize the development of integration assistance in light of the BTHG (Federal Participation Act) and demonstrate the resulting possibilities for implementing Housing First. The second part will feature a panel discussion with experts from various perspectives.
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Housing First programs thrive on committed, often young teams who work with passion but may quickly reach their limits. This presentation shares practical insights on building and sustaining resilient, motivated teams—even under pressure. Key questions include:
How can teams with flat hierarchies and limited resources remain effective and healthy?
What roles do shared responsibility, peer support, and self-care play?
How can burnout be addressed structurally, not just individually? Real-world successes and failures will be discussed to invite reflection and dialogue.
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