On Thursday 30 May 2013, City Hall was the venue of an international conference on ‘The road to sustainable and secure accommodation for the homeless’ organised by the Kings of the Streets Society and the City of Ljubljana’s Public Housing Fund.

The conference featured a presentation of the results of a project of the same name carried out in 2012 and 2013 by the Kings of the Street Society (Slovenia’s equivalent of the Big Issue in the UK), which is an independent humanitarian NGO formally established for the help and self-help of the homeless in September 2005, in partnership with the City of Ljubljana’s Public Housing Fund (JSS MOL) and the Zurich NGO Stiftung Domicil.

The project was financially supported by Swiss donations as part of the Swiss contribution to EU enlargement. The conference was attended by 90 experts from governmental and non-governmental organisations operating mainly in the field of social, homeless and accommodation issues but also in the fields of penal policy, health and others.

As part of The road to sustainable and secure accommodation for the homeless project, the Kings of the Street Society and JSS MOL developed, piloted and road tested new forms of practice that should ease access to accommodation for the homeless and especially enable the most vulnerable among them to remain in accommodation. The main content of the project is to provide flexible and comprehensive housing support to residents in housing units and support accommodation of the most vulnerable homeless in purpose-rented accommodation units.

The ‘Road to sustainable and secure accommodation for the homeless project’ united the knowledge and experience of both partners and worked in a complementary way such that JSS MOL offered accommodation space while the Kings of the Streets Society the necessary accommodation support. Due to lower rental costs and the partnership described above, it was possible to accommodate people who would not otherwise be able to live in these premises.

In fact, the implementation of the pilot project comprised accommodation of an individual with long-term mental disorders and a young family (homeless parents with a newborn). In May, two similar families and two homeless women aged over 50 moved into additional accommodation units. These residents are from especially vulnerable groups with greater support needs who we were not previously able to accommodate in assisted housing.

Experience from the project has been extremely positive. It has demonstrated that such organised work with vulnerable and more disadvantaged people is possible and that it can be implemented with similar expectations and in similar contexts as with all the other homeless. However, it is necessary to adapt support levels (mainly) to the greatest needs for support.

This pilot project was an ‘experiment’ in line with the principle of ‘expanding horizons’ and ambitions in the field of resolving homelessness or housing exclusion for particularly vulnerable groups of homeless people. A certain prerequisite for this ‘expanding horizons’ is to provide quality and appropriate housing support and to maintain good co-operation between residential unit providers and accommodation support providers.