MEP urges EU to contain causes of homelessness

MEP Alfred Sant has urged the EU to coordinate data gathering efforts and studies that shed light on the causes of homelessness.

“We then need to coordinate efforts at a national level that try to contain the causes of homlessness as they arise locally, and those that follow from the free movement of workers and people within the European singlemarket,” Sant said, addressing a seminr on homelessness in Europe at the European Parliament.

Sant said that Europe must ensure that homelessness is a truly reversible phenomenon, and not a once for ever failure.

“It can be, is, reversible. Interventions that seek to trigger this reversibility have the elements of what makes a project viable in socio-economic terms.”

Sant added that this is another dimension where learning from the experience of member states can help develop cost effective practice to contain homelessness on a personal and social level.  

“EU funded projects dealing with homelessess projects should not simply be considered as an exercise in state, or Union charity, or solidarity,” he said, stressing the huge socioeconomic costs of homelessness, that may become cumulative unless they are addressed.

“Investing in the containment of homelessness now, implies less social burdens in the future.”

The MEP added that it although is a recognised fundamental right for a person to have a home, many in Europe continued to be homeless, for various reasons.

“Different causes for homelessness needs different approaches. It’s therefore of crucial importance to get a good idea of the causes,” he said, pointing out that the lack of data remains a fundamental problem, and that the first essential step is to have comprehensive information which includes the numbers and the causes.

“We have a single market in goods and services, as well as in people. But some, perhaps many of those who fail to make it in labour markets, for economic reasons or for personal reasons, like social maladjustment, mental and physical disease, find there is no safety net for them.”

He added that a wedge has been created between what we believe that European values of solidarity and social welfare imply, and what actually happens in neo-liberal Europe at times of consolidation and austerity.