The HomeLab project is financed by DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, under EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI), Grant Agreement Number: VS/2016/0247.
HomeLab’s main objective is to implement the Social Rental Entreprise (SRE) model in 5 pilot projects in four Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries ((CZ, HU, PL, SK). This will allow the adaptation of the model to the local circumstances of countries that have varying social benefit and service provision systems, taking into account the differences in the institutional environment, housing systems and labour market conditions. Based on the experience the refinement of the SRE model will be developed for each pilot that will contribute to scaling up the results, to the possible adaptation of the model both on national and on EU level in order to ensure institutional and financial sustainability beyond the grant period. Furthermore, based on the synthesis of the national models EU level recommendations will be developed with regard to how the EU could support/promote the wider application of the SRE model in other Member States.
The project places strong emphasis on measuring and evaluating the project outcomes and impacts. With a comparison based on the cost-benefit analysis of service provision between the impacts measured among the target group members versus the members of the control groups, the project aims to clearly identify the factors which contribute to the higher efficiency of service provision for hard-to-reach vulnerable citizens.
Project activities
The first 6 months of the project were devoted to finalizing the implementation methodology of the individual pilots. From month 6 onwards the five pilot projects started to operate, involving new clients until month 18. During the grant period of 36 months project activities are planned to directly assist 225 people coming from a variety of vulnerable social groups, from long term unemployed with housing difficulties, low-skilled internally migrating workers to young unemployed, homeless persons, refugees; and a special emphasis will be placed on the Roma population. HomeLab will provide horizontally integrated housing and employment services, which is an outstandingly innovative approach in the CEE context; and will serve a robust evidence base for integrated social provision as opposed to providing these services separately.
Continuous monitoring of the implementation of pilots is provided by independent national monitors in regular oversight and in-depth pilot overviews. Monitoring consists of measuring the outcome of activities by common indicators and of examining the process of service provisions through structured interviews and indicators.
Knowledge exchange between co-applicants is a crucuial part of the project, as it helps coping with difficulties during implementation and monitoring and elaborating national SREs models. Therefore meetings of co-applicants for the purpose of internal training is organised annually. To ensure efficient dissemination of project results and advocacy of the SRE model the partners will organize a national meeting in each country in the last year of the project, and an international dissemination event will also take place at the end of the project with the participation of all the project partners, as well as the members of Dissemination Board