When you’re living on the streets, it may feel like you have been let down by society, and this can push you further away from finding and receiving the help you need to be able to improve your life.

Since 2016, the German Housing First initiative, in partnership with ZuHAuSE-Projekt II (Home Project II), has supported 150–170 homeless people into accommodation each year, and provided them with intensive social support. Marek is one of these people. He initially connected with ZuHAuSE-Projekt II on the streets of Giessen, and has been resident in an apartment provided through the Housing First initiative for five years now.

In order to reconnect and reintegrate Marek into society gradually, members of the ZuHAuSE-Projekt II project team provided him with advice and support in a flexible and unbureaucratic way, and accompanied him through the city’s existing social support services. They also referred him to the Housing First service, which provides housing for vulnerable people in Giessen without imposing any eligibility barriers.

The Housing First service placed Marek in an apartment, and gave him encouragement and guidance on running his household independently after he moved in, including regular home visits from social workers. Marek shares the huge impact that this support had on his life:

‘Without this project, I would be dead now,’ he says.

The combination of the social work done by ZuHAuSE-Projekt II team members on the streets of Giessen with the work of the Housing First service has proven essential for ensuring the sustainability of the support provided, as it has helped to establish homeless individuals’ trust before they are placed in an apartment.

This project and others like it are made possible, in part, thanks to support from the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived.