Parliament to tackle problem of homeless children
A report by the children’s rights commissioner shows that one in three homeless people is a minor, and the Flemish parliament is to explore possible solutions to the issue
‘Refugees in their own land’
According to the report, 12,958 eviction procedures were started in Flanders in 2014, with children involved in one in four cases, most of which concerned rent arrears. The team of children’s rights commissioner Bruno Vanobbergen spoke to 43 families about their situation.
Vanobbergen described homeless children as “refugees in their own land”. Homelessness leads to lack of privacy, and it often requires one or more changes of school, meaning they must leave their friends and give up out-of-school pastimes, he said. The children become uprooted and at the mercy of the adults around them.
In a discussion in the parliament, the chair of the parliament’s committee against poverty, Lorin Parys, and Wim Wouters, adviser to Flemish minister for well-being and family matters Jo Vandeurzen, supported the broad lines of Vanobbergen’s recommendations. They include a more preventive approach when it comes to evictions of families with children, a more ambitious approach to the provision of social housing, and the provision of emergency and transitional housing by local authorities.
“A house is more than just a roof over one’s head,” Parys said. “Housing is an essential part of a child’s development.”
Wouters, meanwhile, argued for a “housing first” approach, where chronic homeless people are given a place to live, with conditions applied only later, giving priority to the immediate problem before moving to a more structural approach. The principle has been applied in practice elsewhere with positive results.
“Every problem in this area is linked to everything else,” Parys said. “A co-ordinated approach is essential.”
