The Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta (HCSOM) provides complex services in the fields of employment, housing and social support in the framework of the HomeLab project in the town of Veszprém. The town lies very close to important touristic centres and generally suffers a lack of labour shortage, which in turn influences greatly its housing market. Prices are very high, comparable The pilot is the largest one of HomeLab, involving 75 households, and focusing on different types of vulnerable groups including tenants of the municipal apartments of Veszprém, tenants accumulating arrears, homeless people, people moving into Veszprem in search of job opportunities and finally, people having lost the ownership of their apartments as a result of the financial and economic crisis.
The model HCSOM is building in the pilot allows it to experiment with a Social Rental Enterprise, allowing it to move the tenants to the type most fitting to their needs. New opportunities can further arise from the fact that it is beginning to rent privately owned dwellings for its clients. The aim is to solidify a system by the end of HomeLab that can reach out to a wide range of vulnerable groups and can provide housing services integrated with social and employment ones.
Regarding the latter HCSOM makes use of its strong embeddedness in the city and its very good connections to the local decision makers, entrepreneurs and the local labour office. It works on a case–by-case basis, getting to know the situation of each of the 75 households, and finding employment opportunities based on this.