Digital Housing and Homelessness Support with the “Network Homelessness & Housing” (Netzwerk Obdach & Wohnen)
Netzwerk Obdach & Wohnen is the new digital tool for preventing homelessness and helping homeless people. This digital homelessness service works like Integreat and shares the same technology that has been tried and tested for eight years. The new platform aims to bring together all relevant information for homeless people and people in housing emergencies in one centralised location. Preventing homelessness plays just as important a role as helping people without a home. Netzwerk Obdach & Wohnen aims to take this into account.
In view of the hot summer days, Netzwerk Obdach & Wohnen is already starting in Augsburg so that help with heat protection can be communicated. In the coming days and weeks, the information will continue to grow together with the organisations providing assistance to the homeless.
Many solutions are needed that work together – digital homelessness support can be a building block
Due to the shortage of affordable housing, more and more people are at risk of homelessness. Although many homeless people and people at risk of homelessness regularly use digital devices, there are still hardly any digital solutions for this very heterogeneous target group. For this reason, Tür an Tür – Digitalfabrik has been developing a multilingual guide for homeless people and people at risk of homelessness and all organisations that support them since the end of 2021 in order to counteract this lack of digital support services tailored to the target group. This idea for digital assistance for the homeless was funded by the “Innovation Programme for Business Models and Pioneering Solutions (IGP)” of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection. We see Netzwerk Obdach & Wohnen as one of many building blocks for successful homeless assistance and the prevention of homelessness. Our platform is intended to create a link between all services and help ensure that the social safety net can support even more people.
How Netzwerk Obdach & Wohnen works
The information on local offers available on the platform is created and maintained directly on site by experts in the municipal administrations and aid organisations. The Integreat content management system, which is already used in over 100 local authorities, is used for this purpose. It is characterised by simple operation and does not require advanced IT skills. The information is output via a web application in the browser. This means that the content can be accessed easily via smartphones, even with older operating systems, as well as via computers.
Information on advice centres, emergency accommodation and other support programmes is planned. Another possible function is the possibility of contacting the municipal cold aid centre. A central element of the solution is the support of multilingualism, as the proportion of non-German-speaking people among those affected by homelessness has increased since 2015, particularly due to the influx of refugees to Germany.
The digital information service supports homeless people in making informed decisions, finding the right advice centres and assisting them in accessing support services. Users can easily gain an overview using a data-saving map function. The service is also designed to have an explicitly preventative effect and support people at an early stage by providing needs-based information and contacts.
Become part of Netzwerk Obdach & Wohnen too
We rely on many elements that are already successful with Integreat. All interested municipalities share a central platform. Each location can then be filled with all local offers and information. You can decide for yourself whether you want to offer the content in German only or in several languages.
If you would also like to use Netzwerk Obdach & Wohnen in your local area, please contact us. We are offering you a free test phase until the end of 2023. And for the time after that, we can continue to operate Netzwerk Obdach & Wohnen for you at low cost. If you are interested in our solution for digital homeless assistance, please contact our team at digitalfabrik@tuerantuer.de.