The Italian Network for Implementing the ‘Housing First’ Approach

In the last year, Italy has been experimenting with the ‘Housing First’ (HF) approach, with 28 projects scattered across 10 regions all over the country, from Turin to Agrigento in the far south of Sicily. It is still an experi- mental phase, but within the traditional model of policies tackling poverty and severe marginalization in Italy, HF represents a breath of fresh air and a way for opening policy to change. The key point lies in driving the spontaneous process of change that is already moving bottom-up from public and private Italian social providers in the fields of housing, poverty and homelessness. The aim is to promote a paradigm shift to renew the means, tools and methods of intervention to deal more effectively with the complex phenomenon of ‘home- lessness’ in Italy. This paper aims to discuss the changes and initial results of the first year of experimentation of the Housing First approach in Italy. The authors explain the reasons that moved Italy to embrace this policy, and describe the efforts carried out by fio.PSD (the Italian Federation of Organizations for Homeless People) to build the Italian Network for imple- menting the Housing First approach (NHFI)