STATEMENT
Poverty, extreme poverty and social inequalities
increasing more and more with all its load of individual
misery and social exclusion that we all know both at
local, regional, national and European level.
Precarious
health, both physical and mental illnesses are the
inevitable corollary that increasingly afflicts a whole
part of the population who, despite being citizens,
cannot take advantage of the same rights recognized to
all the others.
PERSON FIRST
why in spite of the increase in the number and
diversity of services offered, in spite of the
professionalism and the important training of the
operators, in spite of the increase in social and
health budgets, especially in many metropolis, a
certain number of homeless and mentally ill people -
seem to refuse - preferring to stay on the
street rather than accept the solution proposed by
the services ?
WHY
ATTENTION TO SHELTERS :
because
- in spite of the increase in the
number and diversity of services offered...,
- in spite of professionalism of important training of the
operators...,
- in spite of the increase in social and health
budgets...,
an important number
of homeless and mentally ill people -
seem to refuse -
preferring to stay on the street rather than accept the
solution proposed by the services
Questions : are the interventions
-
integrate social & health ?...,
-
coherent with real request of
person in need ?...
-
respectful of the dignity?...,
-
accessible to
marginalized and excluded people everywhere they are,
-
congruent and sustainable ?
With regard to homeless people, there are two emergency
services that encounter the largest number of homeless
people:
The pandemic has
undoubtedly highlighted the critical aspects of both,
but at the same time it has also provided an opportunity
to review and correct past inefficient models,
deinstitutionalizing in a certain sense inadequate
institutions, and above all to innovate by proposing not
only up-to-date structures but above all prototypes more
attentive to the person, more attentive to respect for
privacy than to the economy of the service, more
attentive to reintegration than to assistance.
SHELTER - multivalent function
Three complementary functions best
express the overall meaning we intend to encompass and
express with the word SHELTER:
crossroads - observatory - bridge
a) CROSSROADS: the shelter as the
crossroads
of people
in a situation of poverty and extreme
poverty,
in need of the most ‘basic
& emergency services’
:
day and/or night – drop-in - shower
& clothes - canteen…
More than a place where the
poor people
converge to sleep and to eat (satisfaction of
primary needs)
, the shelter has become more and more the
social reference space & refuge
of current social suffering.
b) OBSERVATORY: the shelter – at same time - could become also a
privileged
observatory
of the causes and consequence of this poverty and
extreme physical and social poverty.
Listening carefully to the said and unseeded of the
suffering of these people, try to understand the
request of the person and the multiple causes that
have reduced him in this condition.
c) BRIDGE: the shelter insure too the function of a
potential
bridge
connecting these need situations with those who –
in community - work in social and health services.
Not only take care of person welcomed, but also to
facilitate connection and accessibility with
community based services .
QUESTIONS
:
-
How these 3 functions
are expression of
social mission
and global function of SHELTER
global services ?
-
What about
innovation
and
adaptation
of the service to the person rather than the
person adapted to the standardization of emergency
services ?
-
How shelter contribute to
inclusion process,
adapted in personal way to all divers people
?
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