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Description
The project addresses the problem of the housing crisis in the City of Toruń, which we want to tackle with instruments of social participation. Together with residents, we will develop a universal model of partnership between community organisations and municipalities for running a Social Rental Agency. According to the data of Property Management Department in Toruń as of December 31, 2021, over 1,000 families are waiting for social housing and over 1,300 people have received eviction notices. It takes more than 5 years to be granted social housing in the City of Toruń. The Supreme Audit Office’s data as of May 2020 reveal similar problems in other Polish municipalities. Our project is aimed primarily at people who need support as quickly as possible. We will offer free consultations to provide them with a diagnosis of their housing and living situation as well as support in asserting their rights. On the basis of the experiences from the consultations, a report on the housing situation in Toruń will be elaborated. We will engage students of social psychology at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń as volunteers to produce the report. Then, we will conduct workshops on civic participation, and together with residents we will carry out a social campaign (in the press and social media) dedicated to the topic of social rental. During the campaign, a debate will take place with representatives of local government, property managers, private owners of dwellings for rent, as well as people with eviction notices and those waiting for social housing. The project will result in a jointly developed, universal and replicable model of partnership between social organisations and municipalities for running a Social Rental Agency. It will become a tool for increasing housing resources in Polish municipalities with the participation of residents.
Summary of project results
The project "Let''s talk about social rental market" was aimed, first of all, at activating people with different views on housing problems to join the debate and dialogue about social rent in the Municipality of Toruń. Secondly, joint development of possible solutions to the housing crisis in Polish municipalities and increasing social participation in the process of shaping city policy. The intervention nature of the project was caused by the suspension of eviction judgments in March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and, consequently, the accumulation of these eviction judgments in Polish municipalities with the simultaneous lack of a sufficient number of residential premises in the municipal resources to meet the housing needs of residents as part of the implementation of the municipality''s housing policy. .
While implementing projects in the area of social and professional activation, we noticed that in the vast majority of cases, the housing problem is a symptom of problems in other areas of life, especially those that affect the economic condition of the household. Typically, the source of the problem was deterioration of health, death of a loved one, loss of job or an unfortunate accident. A noticeable group were the so-called "working poor" are people actively participating in the labor market who, despite performing regular work, were unable to support themselves. This experience allowed us to design a solution in the social rental model, introduced into the Polish legal system by the Act of May 21, 2021.
We have launched a consultation point for residents of Toruń in the revitalization area of Bydgoskie Przedmieście, where the phenomenon of debt, eviction notices and insufficient housing resources is most common. The place of consultation was a former vacant building where, as part of the international Google.org Impact Challenge program, we launched the social innovation Social Agency (SAP). This place has become a center connecting the needs of the community with the resources and capabilities of the local ecosystem of non-governmental organizations and public institutions. During individual expert consultations, we provided direct support to people in difficult housing situations and collected socio-demographic data, which was used to better adapt assistance tools. We also conducted workshops for people experiencing living problems on budget management and debt management. To engage the commune''s residents in dialogue, we organized workshops on social participation and civic activity, during which we jointly designed a social campaign targeted at the entire commune. The culminating moment of the project was a social debate at the SAP headquarters devoted to social renting, in which we involved not only the residents of Toruń, but also the already mentioned local ecosystem of organizations and institutions. As part of the project, we obtained a donation from the Castorama Foundation and renovated the premises using the social rental model in partnership with a private property manager and the owner of the tenement house for a person with an order to leave the current apartment. Therefore, we have shown in practice the application of the statutory model in the version run by the NGO. The "Let''s talk about social rent" project, despite its interventional nature, left lasting results in the form of the SAP space, in which we intend to further develop activities for and with citizens of our commune.
The Department of Housing Management in Toruń was engaged to join the discussion on social renting and the need to increase housing resources with alternative tools such as the existing ones;
- a permanent consultation point was opened for people in difficult housing and debt/professional situations - thanks to this, the quality of social services for the inhabitants of Bydgoskie Przedmieście - the revitalization area - was improved. Thanks to this model, funding was obtained from the Visegrad4Ukraine program of the Visegrad Fund for activities (May-October) aimed at helping refugees, which allowed for the employment of a full-time brokerage specialist. A volunteer involved in the project (5th-year student of Social Psychology) joined the staff of the Project Office. SAP operates (since May) from Monday to Friday and provides assistance to residents of Toruń and NGOs.
- one project was submitted in the civic budget for 2023; SM0455 Staromiejskie "Metamorphosis of the mural at Przedzamcze Street" (https://www.torun.pl/pl/budzet-obywatelski-2023-lista);
- official agreements have been established: on cooperation (May 1, 2022) with the EMIC Foundation regarding, among others, providing SAP space for activities addressed to those under the care of the EMIC Foundation; with the Labor Office (23/05) regarding cooperation in the labor market; with MOPR (June 2, 2022) regarding conducting a social campaign, organizing a meeting and an exhibition on Foster Parenting at the SAP headquarters.
- a participant of the program at CISTOR (20/04-31/05), a center where we conducted workshops and information meetings about the project, was accepted for an internship at the Social Intermediation Agency;
- the Habitat for Humanity Foundation was engaged to participate in a social debate (June 7 and June 30) on the housing situation in Polish municipalities and the course of the debate (from June 7) was recorded in the form of a video available on the YouTube channel (https://youtu.be/jNl0nDmCzmk);