14.05.2026
The study of programs providing housing services with therapeutic support for people with the experience of homelessness, in particular Housing First Programs
The study was carried out in Autumn of 2025 by the Housing First Poland Foundation in cooperation with the Klon Jawor Association. The Housing First Poland Foundation specializes in support, advocacy and development of Housing First in Poland in line with international recommendations in a context sensitive way. The Klon Jawor Association specializes in research on non-governmental organizations, which it has been conducting since 1990 and is a leader in this area in Poland.
Authors:
Julia Wygnańska Housing First Poland Foundation (report)
Julia Bednarek, Beata Charycka Klon Jawor Association (survey and data collection)
The main goal of the study was to collect quantitative information about the participants of the programs, size of the programs, funding as well as barriers and prospects for development.
The second goal was to collect information on the main features of the programs in the framework of Housing First Values: key values, support provided, guaranties for sustainability of participation and the right to housing.
It was not the purpose of the study to judge which of the programs are "real" Housing First although interviewees were asked if the program had Housing First Fidelity analysis. The purpose was to describe chosen programs in the framework of Housing First Values. Everyone is free to discuss the findings and make the judgements if such is their will. The raw data is published on Housing First Portal https://najpierwmieszkanie.org.pl/publikacje/artykul/badanie-uslug-nm-i-podobnych-2025/ as well as the full report from the study in Polish: https://najpierw-mieszkanie-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/Badanie_Program%C3%B3w_NM.pdf
In The Housing First Poland Foundation we believe that all programs inspired by and implementing some of the values of Housing First are increasing the effectiveness of support and the scope of choice for people with the experience of homelessness. Programs with HF Fidelity established in an independent fidelity study guarantee an efficiency of 70-90% (Pleace et al., 2019; Wygnańska, 2023), which is worth considering when planning the program for your Customers.
The online survey consisted of 35 questions mostly multiple choice with few open questions. The survey was anonymous. The interviewees were not asked to give the name of the program nor the city. HFPF was responsible for the survey draft and the list of implementers.
The list included 13 current implementers of HF programs and programs recognized by HFPF as being conducted or inspired by at least three, not necessarily all six, of the Housing First Values. As Housing First Values we used the values put forward in Housing First – Open Model for Ending Homelessness (Wygnańska, 2023): relationship, housing as a right, respect to Participant’s decisions, recovery, support adequate to diagnosis and right to be part of the community.
Four implementers from the list declare that they do not run the Housing First programme, one is declared to be “a support service based on Housing First method” and remaining 6 are self-referred to as the HF Programs.
The Klon Jawor Association was responsible for the final version of the survey, the data collection process and the development of the raw data summary.
The survey achieved its goals: for the first time in Poland, it collected aggregate data on the participants and basic information characterizing the majority of currently functioning HF and HF Value based programs. 11 out of 13 implementers took part in the survey, including:
The HF Values in Polish publications are phrased in different ways. In the survey we used all phrases from two publications: Housing First - Open Model for Ending Homelessness (Wygnańska, FNMP, 2023) and Polish translation of the European Housing First Guidebook (Pleace, 2016, translated by Wilczek in 2020). Interviewees were asked to choose 6 values from the list of 16.
The list of Values:
A key value for all implementers is respect for decisions/choice or control for Participants, as well as the appreciation of recovery, including harm reduction in addiction treatment. Housing as a right is important, but not for everyone. Only for 3 implementers was the whole set of 6 values constituting the HF program important.
The programs vary in size: 5 are small (for 2-4 participants) and 5 are medium or large (9-37 participants) and one is very large (137 participants).
There are 240 people currently participating in all surveyed programs. Since the beginning of HF in Poland altogether 494 people have participated (including number of participants from past programs), of which 445 (111K, 334M) were confirmed in the current study. Among participants there has been no person of non-normative gender, the established proportion of women to men is 1 to 3 (25%K, 75%M). Among participants of all programs there are people with intensive support needs. Some of the programs also involve people with needs of lower intensity. The study did not determine the percentage of people with a given profile in given program.
The program implementers have 172 apartments at their disposal. In 4 programs only independent apartments are offered, in 4 both independent and individual rooms with access to common areas shared with other tenants, in 3 programs individual rooms with access to common areas. In no program is there a situation where participants share one bedroom/room, which is a distinct feature compared to majority of training/supported apartments in Poland.
Most program teams are made up of 2 to 5 employees (8 programs) employed in different time capacity. The support can be very intensive: each participant of the seven programs can count on an average of 8 hours of support from the team members, in three programs on an average of 4 hours per week.
In most programs, team meetings are held once a week, which, considering the small number of participants, is a good starting point to coordinate support in line with HF Fidelity guidelines. It provides relevant time to regularly discuss the situation of each participant.
Support teams consist of workers who are qualified for social work, psychological consultations or therapy, and in one case psychotherapy. Only two programs employ experts by experience. The survey does not show the share of employees with given qualifications in the teams. It can be one psychologist and 4 social workers/assistants or opposite like in the Ambivalence Program of Housing First Poland Foundation.
Most programs provide participants with an apartment or a separate room in shared apartment with access to a common bathroom and kitchen. These are referred to as "program" apartments. In most programs participants do not pay the rent – the apartment is provided “for free” as a housing support. In two programs, the implementers do not provide apartments, instead they engage participants with the history of long term homelessness who already obtained or are in the process of obtaining their own municipal tenancy agreements. Those agreements are 100% independent of the program implementers.
The implementers of 5 programs provide some additional funding for housing costs. This is the case in one of the two programs for participants with municipal tenancy agreements. The program can pay the arrays, bills etc. to guarantee housing since they are not providing apartments themselves.
Part of the support is provided directly by the program teams and part is acquired from outside from the public or private support systems. Support in the following fields is provided directly by the programs: addiction treatment, some mental health services or mediation to access health services, social work, psychological and therapeutic support, social and vocational integration.
Participants of all programs are supported to use services available in the community mostly psychiatric consultations and hospitalisations, general practitioners, treatment for users of psychoactive substances. Those services are hardly ever provided directly by the program. Also, participants in most programs use financial support such as welfare benefits and housing allowance, as well as social work and in-depth social work and psychological/therapeutic consultations provided by public and private institutions from outside of the program.
Many program implementers (8) reported difficulties in obtaining psychiatric services from the public or private system. If we put it in the framework of Housing First Values, it is rather worrying given the needs profile of Participants – high support needs - and lack of such services provided directly by the program teams.
No implementer reported participants experiencing barriers in access to social work and in-depth social work of the public welfare institutions. Also, no barriers were reported in obtaining welfare and housing benefits nor general practitioners (doctors).
In the survey respondents were asked separately about Participation Agreements and Housing Agreements as in some programs housing and participation were regulated separately.
The implementers of the 5 programs declare that the Participants have Participation Agreements for "as long as they express such need". The agreements themselves and the specific wording of the guaranty were not the subject of the study. In remaining 6 programs, Participation Agreements are limited to one year or "project implementation period", which in the framework of Housing First Values does not guarantee the continuity of participation and is the risk to ontological security.
In most programs, the rules for using/renting the apartment are regulated in Participation Agreements. In two programs Participants are municipal tenants who hold individual housing tenancy agreements fully independent from the program implementers. In none of the programs a lease agreement with a private owner is used.
Although in 5 programs the period of participation is "as much as a person needs", in none of the programs do participants have agreements guaranteeing indefinite access to housing. Participation can be indefinite, but the stay in the apartment is always limited by the date or period.
According to the study:
This can be a serious limitation to ontological security. Participants can treat the program as training/transitional apartments, not Housing First Value based program in which housing is a right and is available as long as needed.
As many as 7 implementers treat the program as a permanent service which they are committed to implement long term, not only as part of the current “grant project”. For 4 it is a temporary service provided within a current grant.
4 implementers declared that their program has financing provided for longer than the end of 2027 (over 2 years). As many as 75% of all participants participate in these programs.
The main source of funding in 4 programs were local government funds, in 4 private funds and in the remaining 3 EU funds. Two programs used Polish governmental funds, but the none of the implementers indicated them as the main source of funding.
The implementers were asked to describe their own definition of “successful completion of participation” and provide the numbers of participants who reached it.
All implementers associate successful completion with participants staying housed and reaching independence in life. They are used in two meanings, though.
The first definition of success is more characteristic of training/transitional/supported housing programs than Housing First Value based programs. In HF “program” housing should be felt as “destination” housing from the very beginning.
Based on the data provided in the surveys, the success rate of the programs under the study was calculated as the ratio of the numer of Participants who have successfully completed the program (success defined by implementers) to the number of Participants who have participated in the programs since their beginning minus the number of people who are still active participants. Programs operating from 2025 onwards were excluded from the calculation as well as one program which provided inconsistent data.
The average success rate for 7 programs is 62%.
Only 3 programmes have had evaluation studies carried out. Only one report has been published. Specialist HF Fidelity Assessments were performed in 4 programs but only one of them was published. In five programs, neither the effectiveness nor HF fidelity studies were performed, only in one both were.
The lack of HF Fidelity Assessments is understandable in programs whose implementers do not identify with the Housing First method. There were 4 such programs in the Study. One program declared as not HF and the program implemented as “support service based on Housing First method” both have HF Fidelity Assessments. Only 2 programs openly declared as HF did perform fidelity assessment which leads to the conclusion that actually The Housing First “certification” is not that important.
The attitude of the current implementers to the continuation of the programs is positive despite the challenges. Only one implementer has decided to end the program, the others want to maintain its current form or expand the scope and target group.
The main barriers to the development of the programs were following:
The implementers of the programs draw knowledge about the method mainly from Polish experts and Polish guidebooks. Less than half of them have used international resources, only two have participated in international trainings. It can be summarised that implementers learnt HF work from people who have just learned it themselves and are only a few steps ahead in the knowledge and experience regarding HF.
The most frequently indicated learning needs are:
The end
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The study was conducted within the funding from the Programme of the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy "Defeating Homelessness. Edition 2025" and funds from FNMP donors as part of the project "Homelessness is the choice of society – get inspired to change!". The total cost of the project was 56360 PLN.
