Impact Evaluation of the Provision of Social Housing on the Use of Social Services by Homeless People in the Czech Republic

Katerina Glumbikova,Pavel Rusnok,Marek Mikulec

doi:10.3390/su122310184

Abstract

The Czech Republic has recently experienced a growing number of homeless people, which leads to the need to evaluate the impact of social housing on the living conditions of its users. At present, there is no existing law on social housing in the Czech Republic and the agenda of assistance to the homeless is thus carried out mainly by social services. For these reasons, the paper intends to evaluate the impact of social housing on the homeless in the Czech Republic in a specific area of the use of social services. Based on a quantitative research survey of 147 social housing dwellers after moving in and after 12 months, the impact of social housing on the use of social services was determined, which was put into context with the trend of using social work services in social housing. Research results show that the provision of social housing leads to an overall decrease of the social work utilization and (possible) increase in client self-sufficiency, which can result in strong economic impacts of social housing in the form of savings on social work provision.

Highlights

There are four reasons for the desirability of the paper’s creation, namely: (a) the growing number of homeless people and people at risk of homelessness; (b) the absence of law on social housing, which would require municipalities to provide social housing; (c) existing barriers in using social work services; and, (d) the need for evidence on the impact of social housing on homeless people in the Czech Republic
In the context of the above, this paper aimed to evaluate the impact of social housing on the homeless in the Czech Republic in the specific area of the use of social services determined by a search of Czech and foreign literature
There was an increase in the use of social services in the area of debt-solving assistance in some target groups, which can be considered as a significant positive impact of social housing

Summary

Introduction

There are four reasons for the desirability of the paper’s creation, namely: (a) the growing number of homeless people and people at risk of homelessness; (b) the absence of law on social housing, which would require municipalities to provide social housing; (c) existing barriers in using social work services; and, (d) the need for evidence on the impact of social housing on homeless people in the Czech Republic. According to the Homeless People Census [2], in the spring of 2019, there were a total of approximately 23,830 homeless persons in the Czech Republic, of whom 2600 were children. All ETHOS (European typology of homelessness and housing exclusion) categories of homeless people were included in this census. This number can be considered high, as it is 0.2% of the population of the Czech Republic

Objectives

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Conclusion