Positive Outcome from the MPHASIS Project

The results of a major European project to improve the monitoring of homelessness and homeless policies across the continent, led by Barbara Illsley and Bill Edgar from Town and Regional Planning at Dundee, were presented to a European Commission Conference 'Mutual Learning on Active Inclusion and Homelessness' in Brussels, Belgium, on 5 - 6 May 2010. Speaking at the conference Hugh Fraser, Coordinator of the European Network of Independent Experts on Social Inclusion, praised the MPHASIS project as an example of "very good practice" in information exchange and policy learning.

The 'MPHASIS' Project (Measuring Progress on Homelessness through Advancing and Strengthening Information Systems) received £500,000 in funding from the European Commission DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities PROGRESS Programme. It consisted of two strands of work: action-oriented research in nine countries into issues such as measuring homelessness amongst ex-convicts and the prison population in Norway and the transferability of good practice in developing service provider databases in the Netherlands; and transnational exchange which involved national stakeholder meetings in 20 countries and a major conference held in Paris in September 2009.

From a position ten years ago when homelessness was seen by many policy makers as too sensitive an issue to confront, interest in data collection on homelessness has grown and this project has demonstrated a real desire for more EU cooperation in order to tackle homelessness as part of the social protection and social inclusion agenda.

"Co-ordinating work across 20 countries made this a very demanding project but it has also been very rewarding" said Barbara Illsley. "In some cases, the national meetings brought policy makers and service providers with responsibility for homelessness data collection together for the first time and in many countries the momentum generated has helped to shape national homeless strategies".

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