Direitos de autor: © 2020 LUSA - Agência de Notícias de Portugal, S.A.
We are launching a social housing fund in Lisbon to address homelessness and defend the right of every person to have a place where life can unfold with dignity. A space to keep a toothbrush, shoes by the door, and enjoy silence and peace. A space to get back up and become whoever they want to be.
Walk through Lisbon today and you’ll witness a housing crisis - tents in parks and cardboard beds in train stations. Housing demonstrations down the city’s main avenues. An environment that shows how quickly the ground can vanish beneath our feet when rents double, prices rise, or jobs get unstable. Last night in Lisbon, over 3,300 people were homeless. Of those, around 600 slept on the street - hundreds of people without a place to be off guard, and nowhere to start from.
Many housing responses to homelessness still follow a "staircase" approach. People are expected to complete treatment, demonstrate that they’re actively seeking employment, or transition through temporary shelters before being considered for permanent housing. However, this logic overlooks the realities of street life and creates barriers to accessing a fundamental human right.
Would we ask a starving person to prove they deserve food?
It’s challenging to rebuild your life while in a state of survival. You can’t plan your future when you don’t know where you’ll sleep tonight. The instability of homelessness makes long-term progress nearly impossible.
The Housing First methodology takes a different approach by offering people experiencing homelessness a permanent home immediately, without any preconditions or requirements. The idea is simple: once someone has a safe and stable place to live, they’re in a much better position to focus on recovery, reconnect with family, or find work on their terms and timeline.
Portugal began piloting Housing First in 2009. Today, in Lisbon, 400 Housing First homes are co-financed by the Municipality and the Social Security Institute. Associação Crescer, a Housing First provider since 2011, demonstrates impressive results: 9 out of 10 participants remain housed, not because every problem disappears, but because they finally have a foundation upon which to build their lives.
Stability is what makes everything else possible.
In Finland, where Housing First has been implemented nationwide, homelessness has dropped by over 40% in the past decade. In the United States, cities such as Salt Lake City and Houston have experienced a significant decline in chronic homelessness after implementing the Housing First approach, achieving long-term housing retention rates of over 90%. These outcomes go beyond stable housing. Housing First participants use emergency services less frequently, engage more with healthcare, and report higher levels of well-being. Studies also show significant public cost savings by reducing reliance on hospitals, shelters, and the justice system.
We asked ourselves: How do we create more of that impact here - and make it last?