As we told in December, the Funding Centre for Social Welfare and Health Organisations
(STEA) will stop financially supporting the activities of Kotimajoituksen tuki ry. The contracts of two employees will end in January, and one employee will continue through the spring, among other things closing down the activities previously carried out by the association’s staff.
The Home Accommodation Network (Kotimajoitusverkosto) emerged in 2015 when a large number of asylum seekers arrived in Finland, and people across the country wanted to show them solidarity. People offered accommodation in their homes to asylum seekers who had nowhere to go – or who, for various reasons – could not or did not want to stay at a reception center. In December 2015, a support association was established to coordinate the activities, support those involved in home accommodation, and promote the practice in general.
With STEA stopping its funding, the association’s future is uncertain. Regardless of whether the association continues on a voluntary basis, home accommodation will continue through the Home Accommodation Network – and also outside the network. Many people wish to stay in home accommodation, and its demand will not disappear.
Although home accommodation activities will continue, we believe it is a mistake – and shortsighted – to end the association´s funding at a time when multidirectional integration, which home accommodation promotes, is greatly needed.
”Ending the funding has dramatic effects, as home accommodation is extremely significant to all involved. People seeking international protection in Finland often end up being excluded from society in various ways, and home accommodation – together with a longterm approach to multidirectional integration – would be especially important at this time”, notes the board of Kotimajoituksen tuki ry.
During the spring we will be forced to close down numerous activities that alla parties of home accommodation rely on.
”Those seeking home accommodation will no longer have a single clear organisation from which to receive information and professionally provided support in finding accommodation, making agreements, and handling other questions related to the arrangement,” reminds the association’s Executive Director, Terhi Aaltonen.
We are currently considering how the association’s or the Home Accommodation Network’s activities might continue on a volunteer basis. If you would like to be part of this process, you are warmly welcome to join us in developing ideas! Send an email (info@kotimajoitusverkosto.fi) or follow our social media channels for information about the event in Helsinki on March 7, where the future will be planned. With home accommodation, thousands of people have been supported over the past ten years, and the need for hosts, counselling, and other home accommodation activities will not end with the discontinuation of funding.
”Our work is also important from a preparedness perspective. This became clear when the association and the Home Accommodation Network supported and coordinated the home accommodation of countless Ukrainians at the beginning of Russian´s fullscale invasion of Ukraine. If in the future the need and supply for home accommodation suddenly increases again, one can only hope that the experience, expertise, and networks can be quickly mobilized for the benefit of both guests and hosts,” Aaltonen emphasizes.
”In my work at Kotimajoituksen tuki it has been inspiring to witness how one room can truly change the world. Opening one’s home to an asylum seeker is an enormously significant act that can influence not only the lives of the people involved but also their close circles and broader communities. At the same time, it sends a clear message of solidarity and shows that the doors of homes can open even when borders are closing,” Aaltonen points out.