Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Urban Citizenship Covid

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We chose to focus on the providers who service homeless migrants, who have over the past decade become amongst the most marginalized in the country.

• This population has grown - in wake of both 2007 eastern expansion of the EU and 2008 financial crisis that evolved into a protracted economic crisis in especially southern EU countries - to an estimated 2,000-4,000 people (in a city of 600,000 inhabitants).
• The bulk of this population is comprised of EU-citizens or holders of permits in different EU countries. Yet migrants are not registered with the state and thus lack an official registration number (so-called CPR number or number of Det Centrale Personeregister). The CPR-card is factually a national healthcare card that grants access to a highly regulated, digitalized and formalized system of not only health care but state social welfare more broadly. It, however, functions effectively as the main identification document in the country, with the CPR number requested for anything from opening a bank account through applying for public library card to, more controversially and potentially illegally, entering the publicly funded homeless shelters. It is exceedingly difficult to acquire for foreigners without a work contract and a firm address, documenting residence for at least a month.
• Paradoxical positioning: homeless migrants are highly visible in the city, for example through bottle-collection as their main source of livelihood, yet they are rather invisible in the policy arena at both urban and national scale.
• The presence of these migrants in the country is grudgingly accepted under the broader EU legal framework, where they fall within the grey zone between the EU freedom of movement and labor mobility policy on the one hand, and Denmark's social policy and welfare governance on the other.
• Their presence is, at the same time, also contested through Copenhagen’s continued criminalization of street life, in particular rough sleeping and begging, and increased limitations on publicly funded social services.
• Except for emergency-only access to healthcare and eligibility for the municipality-run "Transit program” (assistance returning to ‘home countries’), these migrants rely on non-profit organizations and charities to access resources or substantiate their often latent rights. These are funded primarily by private foundations, EU funding, and the occasional and sparse contribution by municipalities earmarked for limited projects or objectives.

Sampling and Data Collection

30+ Migrant Serving Organizations (MSOs) - mostly smaller sub-organizations of big national charities or temporary projects - are located primarily in two neighborhoods of Copenhagen. Bulk of these have not been established to work specifically with migrant homeless populations, but over time this group came to dominate amongst the population supported. While most providers follow "do not ask" policy, they do have a sense of the composition of the population they work with. In this project we focused primarily on those providers working mostly with migrant homeless, interviewing managers or senior staff in 10 such MSOs. Additionally, we interviewed the Mayor of Social Affairs in Copenhagen from the time of the pandemic, a municipal employee of the Transit program, a manager of a large private foundation funding social work with the marginalized in Denmark, and a researcher embedded through volunteer work and previous work. This was complemented by volunteering-based participant observation in one of the MSOs, as well as at meetings of Migrant solidarity network, a network that brings some of the MSOs together for information exchange and emotional support. These informants were recruited through purposeful sampling, with an additional snowball sampling of two informants. The data collection was conducted between September 2021 and February 2022.

Main Findings

The response of the MSOs working with homeless migrants to the pandemic and the government's responses to the pandemic in Copenhagen was a bifurcated one.

On the one hand:

• some MSOs, especially those providing low-threshold services focused primarily on coping with the governmental restrictions (in particular remote work/furlough in limited periods for non-essential workers and distancing requirements) by adapting their practices to accommodate these restrictions.
• Enabled also by a temporary decrease in number of clients, they turned to an increased use of technology (phone consultations and keeping in touch, online language classes), an increase in one-on-one in-person work that enabled an inclusion of consultations, or an incorporation of adjacent outdoors public spaces for provision of, for example, meals.
• These individual and organizational navigation tactics were adopted ad-hoc, without coordination by a central body.
• Over time, as testing facilities, isolation and vaccination services began to be technically offered to homeless migrants, these providers' employees became vital in helping their clients access services, through accompanying them and mediating their access on-site with the providers not necessarily familiar with the provisions.

On the other:

• A minority of MSOs pursued, from the start, a more assertive approach to both, service provision, and to interfacing with state actors, especially the municipality.
  The former, especially at the outset of the pandemic, stemmed from MSOs presuming, correctly, that the governmental response would lack a recognition of subjects positioned outside formal systems of welfare citizenship, such as homeless migrants. It resulted, for example, in a prompt establishment of a mobile testing unit for the street population at the early stages of the pandemic.
• In regard to the latter, these actors came to organize around a latent political agenda for migrant and marginalized people. They did so especially through reaching out to the Copenhagen's Mayor for Social Affairs, who became then the spokeswoman advocating with other municipal actors for adjustments to the urban-scale implementation of pandemic measures that took the homeless, including the homeless migrants, into consideration.
• The MSO activist group advocated, only partially successfully, also for a series of other changes to national policies, such as attempting to legitimize informal work, major source of livelihood amongst homeless, under the national compensation scheme, or pushing for the classification of testing facilities as a form of 'emergency treatment’ to accommodate unregistered migrants. In doing so, these actors drew both on their pre-covid political agency as well as pre-existing personal connections with the Mayor that were drawn on in this approach.
• While the first set of MSOs tended to see the pandemic primarily as another crisis within the landscape of their long-term, crisis-like work with a deeply marginalized and uncared for population, the second set saw the pandemic, primarily at the outset, as an opportunity that opened the political landscape to push through long-advocated approaches in social work. 

• Overall, the accommodations that occurred, brokered mostly individually and through personal networks, resulted in a very a fragmented patchwork of temporary, provisional solutions and inclusions. Moreover, if they benefited homeless migrants, they did so primarily through initiatives aimed more widely at marginalized populations connected to the formal services, ie, the homeless. This, we argue, amounts to the pandemic providing, at most, a moment of incidental citizenship for homeless migrants.
  
  

Copenhagen Policy and Practice Recommendations
 

Based on our research we divide our recommendations into two categories. The first addresses recommendations related to the improvement of organizational and institutional landscape of service provision for homeless migrants. The second lists more concrete key suggestions for improving service provision, including in collaboration with other municipal actors. 

A) Organizational Policy Recommendations:

1.  Establishment of Advisory Council  (AC)
   During the pandemic, regular meetings of a network of local service providers, in connection with the Social Affairs Mayor, proved crucial for a flow of information and coordination between street-level providers and the municipality. We recommend that this process of informal exchange and communication becomes institutionalized through the establishment of an Advisory Council, with regular monthly or bi-monthly meetings. AC would work as a formal platform for representatives selected by the Forum (under A2) and Social Affairs Mayor. It would enable a timely and transparent exchange of information and provide opportunity for a collective feedback of service providers to the municipality. Such an institutionalization is necessary in order to ensure that collaboration practices can survive personnel changes and political shifts. Such a consultative body could also be utilized as a platform for discussing potentialities in coordination around funding/support mechanisms more broadly.
   
   
2. Establishment of a Forum of Providers
   While there are several existing networks amongst the providers, the landscape of service provision (as well as communication with the Social Affairs Mayor) would benefit strongly from a more formal body with all service providers for homeless providers in Copenhagen. The proposed Forum will be able to provide a strong collective voice by bringing these providers and organizations together. Such a voice is needed, first of all, to tackle common public misconceptions about the target group’s actual legal rights and lived realities. Furthermore, and as highlighted in an interview with a private foundation, such a collective Forum would be able to credibly identify and specify the areas of improvement of service provision for this population. This could be, or course, used internally for more strategic actions, but, importantly, also vis-à-vis funders interested in investing in civil society’s work with this particular population.
   
   
3. Establishment of a Homeless Migrant Center as a ‘One stop shop’
   Our research drew attention to homeless migrants' intense everyday spatial navigation of Copenhagen’s city-wide resources and services.  This population's mobilities were tested even further during the Covid-19 pandemic where spaces, rules, boundaries and restrictions were ever-changing and inconsistent. This meant that the information around access to such spaces and services was constantly changing.  Based on the experiences from our research partners in Tel Aviv, where several MSOs were (and continue to be post-pandemic) housed under one roof, we recommend a similar 'one stop shop' for this target group in Copenhagen. Such a consolidation of services and knowledge, could potentially allow for a more time- and resource-efficient and effective coordination in everyday practices and services provided for homeless migrants.   

B) Service Provision Recommendations: 
 

1. Enhancing Mobile Services (municipality and service providers)
   Covid-10 further exposed the need for mobile social and health services for marginalised populations. While, for example, testing and vaccination centers were technically ‘open’ to all at different pandemic stages, homeless migrants sought out hands-on facilitation for accessing these services, or chose not to access them at all—mainly out of fear, confusion and/or distrust of official capacities provided.  Instead, spatially mobile provisions proved to be an effective way for bridging gaps in care. As service advocates for homeless/precariously housed drug users extended their services to Covid-19 testing at the very beginning of the pandemic, other programs and services followed suit and adopted more mobile and flexible approaches. Incorporation of such practices alongside formal services could help fill in gaps in care and access.
   
   
2. Increased Provision of Mental Health Services (municipality and service providers)
   Covid-19 both uncovered and increased needs for mental healthcare for this population group. MSOs were overwhelmed with the new and intensified issues presented within this particular population. In line with point B1, we recommend, specifically, an inclusion of mobile, street-based psychological services—beyond ‘emergency’ care. This kind of provision would take some burden off of smaller organizations without expertise in this area.  
   
   
3. Extending the Housing First Initiatives (municipality and service providers)
   One of the largest barriers for homeless, legally-present unregistered migrants, is they can not be granted a CPR without listed long-term housing.  During the Covid-19 pandemic, a number of hostels and hotels provided rooms, which served as experimentation spaces for Housing First initiatives—an international movement centred on ending homelessness and aiding integration practices. Supported by the organization working with Housing First approach, this experiment proved how effective secure housing initiatives are for the broader rehabilitation of the homeless. Continuation of these programs, even on a smaller scale, is thus highly recommended. 
   
   
4. Measured Adoption of Digitalization (service providers)
   One of the defining features of everyday life under the pandemic was increased digitalization of everyday life from remote-work to service provision, as in cases of tele-consultations with basic healthcare providers. Digitalization, where possible, was also adopted by some of the service providers, whether in relation to the provision of Danish classes online or individual social support. Yet after the pandemic, there was a rapid return to pre-pandemic focus on in-person delivery. While in-person services provide, and should continue to provide, the bulk of services and care for this population that relies heavily on personally and in-person built relations of trust, it is also notable that most homeless do have access to phones with internet as well as some level of digital literacy. It is thus recommended to consider which services, from basic navigational information through supplemental services (classes or filling out of forms tutorials) could be provided in digitally. Recommendations from a recent EU-wide study on the digital inclusion for homeless from FEANTSA, the only Europe-wide NGO working to end homelessness in Europe, should be followed in this adoption.
   
   
5. Non-CPR Card (service providers)
   As there are many misconceptions about the levels of legality and rights of homeless migrants we recommend the Forum (A2) to consider a production of "non-CPR’ card" which clearly identifies the legal positioning of the homeless migrants in the Danish society, particularly the EU laws under which they are protected.  This could, for example, be presented in instances where their rights are in question or unclear to the providers within the wider system of care in the city.

Contact: Tatiana Fogelman