ADEIMA and the municipality's project bets on prevention
In less than a year, 62 homeless people have already been assisted by the New Horizons project.
Created in September 2021 by the Matosinhos City Hall in partnership with ADEIMA (Association for the Integrated Development of Matosinhos) and funded by Norte 2020, the Regional Operational Program of the North/European Social Fund, the project focuses on prevention.
The first step is to identify homeless people and ensure their psychosocial follow-up. After that, the various services work together to provide housing, legal and social support, medical care, clothing, hygiene and food, increased skills, employment, or even provide a fixed address for those who can't even do something as simple as renewing their Citizen's Card.
For this purpose, street rounds are carried out, on foot and/or in a vehicle, in order to go through these people's sleeping places or to identify new places and new situations.
The signaling can also be done by other entities, such as the Núcleo para o Planeamento e Intervenção na População em Situação de Hombrigo de Matosinhos (Matosinhos Center for Planning and Intervention in Homeless People), or through the National Social Emergency Line, where a team goes to the location to identify the person and assess the situation.
There are people living in isolation, with no family or social support, some with psychiatric problems, others with a deficit in personal, social and employability skills, many of them long-term unemployed or without access to support such as the Social Integration Income.
In the first phase, the team makes a precise diagnosis that is as close to reality as possible. The intervention plan is drawn up together with the person, taking into account their needs, specificities, wishes, and existing resources in the network. With these actions, it is hoped to bring homeless people closer to the network's services, namely at the social and health levels, improving their quality of life, and, ultimately, solving their homeless situation, preferably on a permanent basis.
Of the 62 people already monitored, 10 have been integrated into temporary accommodation (Social Shelter, Social Emergency Shelter, Stella Maris), 29 have integrated structures providing free daily or occasional food (Lar de Santana/CATI/Porta Solidária/Vicentinos), 8 have managed to rent a house and 10 have rented a room.
Another project implemented in Matosinhos, in this area, is the Shared Housing, under the National Strategy for the Integration of Homeless People, which provides for the creation of responses at the level of transitional shared equipment, with the ultimate goal of social integration of homeless people.
ADEIMA signed a protocol with Social Security for the operation of shared apartments. In addition to housing, basic needs are ensured, as well as social monitoring, close and appropriate to the specificities and needs of each person.
Located in one of the housing developments managed by MatosinhosHabit, the four apartments (2 T3 and 2 T2) have the capacity to receive 10 users, according to the protocol of cooperation with Social Security, and, at this moment, all vacancies are occupied.
The technical team defines and develops an individual intervention plan for each of the residents, according to their individual needs and respective skills, ensuring their follow-up.
The plan includes actions that promote their insertion (orientation to resources of the social network, education/training, response to job offers, among others), as well as activities of daily living that will be their responsibility or co-responsibility in the daily management of the apartment where they are living.
For more information about the projects "New Horizons" and Shared Housing, please contact ADEIMA, through the email adeima@adeima.pt or by phone (+351)229578150.
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