On June 21st, European institutions, all 27 EU governments and civil society (represented amongst others by FEANTSA and Social Platform) have for the first time jointly committed to working together towards eradicating homelessness in the EU by 2030. At a high-level conference in Lisbon, they officially launched the European Platform on Combatting Homelessness to generate dialogue, improve evidence and monitoring, trigger mutual learning, and strengthen cooperation among all actors that aim to fight homelessness. The Lisbon Declaration on the European Platform on Combatting Homelessness is warmly welcomed by Eurodiaconia, and we will together with our members support the further establishment of the Collaboration Platform and hope to see it fully operable as soon as possible to accelerate the joint fight against homelessness.
During the conference, FEANTSA announced the Gold, Silver and Bronze prize winners of their Ending Homelessness Awards. The awards aim to identify, promote and celebrate three projects that have made the most inspiring use of European funds to tackle homelessness. We applaud the 3 winning projects and other submissions and hope to see many more inspiring projects in the future. To find out more about this year’s winners and which funds were used, please have a look at FEANTSA’s website here.
Eurodiaconia is playing an active role in raising awareness on homelessness and in proposing next steps at EU and Member State level initiatives on homelessness. Together with our members we stand ready to be one of the key stakeholders in the European platform and to support actions to deliver on principle 19 of the EPSR. In the coming weeks and months, we will conduct a mapping of members work and identify targeted policies for particularly vulnerable groups. The outcomes, reflecting on the role of diaconal organisations in the fight against homelessness, shall be shared in a report and a webinar.
The Lisbon Declaration on the European Platform on Combatting Homelessness can be found here.