The project provides a municipal flat and intensive housing first case management for 50 families who were previously living in private hostels, shelters or other forms of homelessness (ETHOS). The service provider is award winning local pro-Roma NGO IQ Roma Servis, trained by pioneers of housing first in Europe, HVO Querido. The impact of the project is measured by a Randomized Control Trial, counterfactual design, which allows it to isolate outside factors by comparing the treatment and control group. The first families moved in in September 2016 and by May 2017 all 50 families were housed. We aimed 80% housing retention rate after one year, currently we are at 96% (04/2018)





Housing first showcase for the Czech Republic

The project aims at rigorously testing and showcasing whether family homelessness of both Roma and non-Roma families can be ended through a housing first approach in the Czech Republic. The expectation is that families who have been stabilized in housing will reunify with their institutionalized children, family well-being and social inclusion will improve, and at the same time public expenditures for those families will decrease.





Family homelessness in Brno

A family homelessness registry week was conducted in Brno in April 2016, and 421 families living in private hostels, shelters or other forms of homelessness (ETHOS) were registered. Experiencing a first housing crisis has been shown to be a path to long-term homelessness for two thirds of families in Brno, 92% of homeless families experienced long-term (more than six months) homelessness in their life for a median period of eight years (Registry week Brno 2016). Two thirds of these families are Roma. Once homeless, these families are typically considered not fit for housing by both private and public landlords, and have little access to housing.





What is the city planning to do?

The City of Brno (pop 400 000), which owns and controls access to 29 000 flats, approved a strategy to end family homelessness: to make it rare, short and non-recurring. Since 2016 various traditional and experimental approaches have been tested for outcomes. Among them, the housing first approach seemed very promising, so 50 municipal flats were dedicated to showcase housing first in Brno and measure its impact through randomized control trial.

Between September 2016 and May 2017 fifty families out of the total population of 421 were randomly assigned to housing first program through a lottery organized by City Council for Health and Social Affairs. Only one family turned the offer down, partly because they did not want to work with Roma NGO service provider, and generally they were not interested in receiving any support.





We evaluate the pilot with a Randomized control trial

The project is accompanied by a rigorous counterfactual impact evaluation, a randomized control trial, performed by the University of Ostrava. The control group, against which the impact of the project will be measured, consists of additional 100 randomly assigned families. Both treatment and control groups are surveyed at baseline, and after six and twelve months after move-in within this project. At the end of the 12-months, impact of housing first program on the families will be evaluated.

The project is run by Brno municipality, which is not only the owner of the 50 non-segregated apartments but also provides overall coordination of local partners including Department of Social and Legal Protection of Children, Labour Office, Department of Education etc. Brno municipality is acting as the lead for the program to also test that a local authority partnering with local actors is best placed to be responsible for ending homelessness and further integration of its marginalised citizens.





Lead: Statutory city of Brno

Partners: IQ Roma Servis, z. s.; Ostrava University



