In March 2021, the European Commission established the European Platform for Combatting Homelessness (the Platform) as a component of the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan. The Platform was launched via the Lisbon Declaration in June 2021 with the support of all Member States and relevant stakeholders and with a shared commitment to eradicating homelessness by 2030. To achieve this objective, the Platform aims to trigger dialogue, promote mutual learning of best practices, improve data collection and analysis, strengthen cooperation among the various stakeholders and promote human-centred, housing-led policies.

Following this momentum, on February 28th, 2022, Eurodiaconia’s Secretary-General, Ms Heather Roy, representing Social Services Europe, attended the Ministerial Event in which Ms Emmanuelle Wargon, the French Minister Delegate for Housing, and Mr Nicolas Schmit, the European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights met with the ministers of several Member States and the members of the Platform.

During the meeting, all Member States and stakeholders supported the Platform’s work programme, which was officially adopted. The facilitation of exchange between stakeholders, and the mobilization of signatories to combat homelessness were also discussed.

The Platform’s work programme outlined concrete actions for each stakeholder of the Platform to support mutual learning, EU and national adequate funding allocation and a framework to monitor and collect data on homelessness. For instance, the European Commission is responsible for establishing a mutual learning policy toolkit to map and assess existing strategies, as well as implementing a Pilot Project (Point in Time Count) to collect and analyse European-wide homelessness data. The National and Regional authorities are accountable for the development and adoption of strategies which need to include the involvement of relevant stakeholders. Last, civil society has been tasked with actively engaging with their members to collect evidence and support them in their efforts to combat homelessness.

Eurodiaconia will continue to contribute to the work of the Platform and, together with our members, we will keep working towards the common goal of eradicating homelessness by 2030. To learn about the work our members are doing to tackle homelessness, you can check out our Homelessness mapping here 

To read the European Platform for Combatting Homelessness’s work programme, click here, and to read more about the Ministerial Conference, you can read this article.