Rom for refleksjon. Kirkens bymisjon og oppfølging av bostedsløse

During the last eight years the voluntary organisation Church City Mission in Oslo has established several housing facilities and housing arrangements in combination with follow-up services for homeless people in Oslo city. The Church City Mission offers today permanent housing facilities and dwellings for women, temporary dwellings for drug addicts, educational courses, activity centres and follow-up services as well as ambulant services to homeless people. The overall aim for the organisation is to develop houses and dwellings in combination with follow-up services in order to improve people’s standards of living and their life situation. This is a study of four specific houses and the organisation’s follow-up services to homeless women and men in Oslo on behalf of public services. This work started in 2001 as a result from the national project to combat homelessness, «Project Homelessness». This project was continued as a national strategy called «The pathway to a permanent house» in the period between 2005 and 2007. The four houses that have been studied are Nåløyet/Natthjemmet, Steenstrupsgate 11, Thaulows vei and Schandorffsgate. These houses and follow-up services meet an accumulated need in the municipality of Oslo and represent an important variety when it comes to housing and dwellings for homeless people in the city. An important topic in this study is how the organisation’s emphasis on follow-up services as being time consuming and relational work is challenged by public services that expect results quickly. The first part of the study focuses on the development of the organisation of the follow up services. The study shows that it has not been an easy task to organise and coordinate the services and that the organisation is working on how to anchor the services better within the organisation. The study also shows that the four services cooperate differently with social services in the municipality, something that add to the complexity and conditions the work differently. The other part of the study focuses on different aspects of the follow-up position and the user’s meanings about, and experiences with how it is to live in the houses. We discuss the different challenges and methodologically implications for the positions such as being a «coach» or an «advocate». The last chapter discusses different issues regarding how the services both professionally and methodologically can be developed further in the future