We want to provide people in social need with a roof over their heads, valuable advice, or support. We do our best, but this article is not about social workers. It is about the people whose care we provide as social workers. It is about the clients of the Crisis Center – the Emergency Housing Facility in Košice, operated by the Archidiecézna charita Košice. Its mission is to provide public benefit activities in the form of social, medical, charitable, and educational services, as well as other necessary support regardless of race, nationality, religion, or political views.
Crisis Center – Emergency Housing Facility in Košice as a Tool of Assistance
Following these principles, the Archidiecézna charita Košice established the Crisis Center in Košice in 2003. Its original location was Alejová Street, but as the needs for housing clients kept growing, it was moved to larger premises with better capacity. Despite mixed reception by nearby residents, it now provides services in Košická Nová Ves on Poľná Street, and the impact of its assistance has a much broader scope. It currently accommodates 80 clients, which is its maximum capacity. This is one way to document the undeniable need for support for socially vulnerable social groups.
“The operator of the crisis center is the Archidiecézna charita Košice, to which the city assigned a building of a former primary school for this purpose. The capacity of this facility is 80 clients. For the reconstruction of the current crisis center, which has a capacity of eighty places, the charity has invested from its own funds so far more than 365 thousand euros. We replaced the old windows with plastic ones, repaired the sanitary facilities, did new painting, and before Christmas 2008 the first families moved in,” assessed the relocation process by the director of the Archidiecézna charita, Ing. Cyril Korpesio, and outlined future plans “The charity is preparing a further reconstruction and quality improvement of services in the crisis center through projects, for whose implementation we want to obtain resources from the European Union structural funds.”
The Crisis Center – emergency housing facility is essentially a combined social services establishment. It provides help to clients in two basic forms:
- Shelter for single women without housing and young people after leaving institutional care,
- Home for single parents – single parents with children.
Shelter for single women without shelter and young people after leaving institutional care
The shelter serves a high-risk client group whose main problems are a lack of social contacts, lack of social skills (inability to manage money, inability to navigate office structures), exclusion from the labor process, incomplete education, or lack of housing possibilities. The shelter has a capacity of 15 clients.
According to § 26 of Act No. 448/2008 Z.z. on social services in the wording of later regulations, “In a shelter, for a natural person who does not have secured conditions necessary for meeting basic life needs and who does not have accommodation or cannot use previous housing anymore, it
1. provides
- temporary accommodation
- social counseling
- essential clothing and footwear
- creates conditions for
- carrying out necessary basic personal hygiene
- food preparation, meal distribution, or food provision
- washing, ironing, and maintenance of linen and clothing
- leisure activities”
Home for single parents
The home for single parents is a very demanding clientele in terms of solutions. This service enables single parents to solve their housing needs on a temporary basis for several months. Among clients we encounter neglect in upbringing, as well as violence in families in the form of psychological and physical abuse.
Mothers with children come to the crisis center after difficult life situations marked by abuse, loss of partner, loss of employment, family loss, or loss of home. We work with them toward responsibility, self-realization, developing work habits, building fine motor skills, work responsibility, and helping them re-enter normal life and participate in the labor market. The home for single parents has 65 places.
A work therapy component is also part of the stay. According to § 23 of Act No. 448/2008 Z.z. on social services in the wording of later regulations: “Work therapy is a professional activity for acquiring work habits and skills of a person while performing work activities under professional supervision for the purpose of restoring, maintaining, or developing the person’s physical abilities, mental abilities, and work capacities and their integration into society.” Each client has assigned spaces they must care for. In practice, this means they are responsible for the cleanliness of their allocated part of the building—whether it is washing the kitchen or the corridors. Cleaning common areas is mandatory, and failure to do so results in clients being sanctioned with black points.
The facility has craft skill workshops, which are mandatory for clients, especially those not currently employed. They are supervised by three social workers trained in specific tasks. They produce bead and clay jewelry, use a napkin technique for decorating various objects. They paint on glass and mirrors, weave carpets. There are three sewing machines, a traditional weaving machine, a pottery wheel, and a kiln for firing ceramics. Finished products are either presented and distributed at various events, or sold, for example at Christmas markets, for a symbolic price. Money from sales is used to buy materials for the workshops.
For clients, the workshops are a form of therapy intended to support a return to the labor cycle so that they get used to having to go to work if they live independently. If a client does not participate in workshops, they are penalized with the previously mentioned black points. This can lead to eviction from the facility for 24 hours, which is a form of punishment for them. If this happens three times, they must leave the facility entirely.
Achievements
In its currently completed six years of existence, the Center has proven what experts unanimously argued before its opening. There is an unquestionable need for its existence, and the first positive results are also arriving.
“Over six years, the crisis center helped more than two hundred families, and we helped 50 families find their own housing, find employment, and return to normal life. The center does not only provide mothers and children with safe shelter, but we also help them find work and provide counseling,” said Mgr. Miroslav Firda, head of the Crisis Center in Košice, in a spirit of evaluation.
In 2009 the facility successfully implemented several projects. Among all, the most notable are:
Project of family finances school “Tri groše”
- the goal was to convey to clients information and knowledge about money management through cyclical and one-time seminars
- the main problem for clients is inadequate financial management. Clients’ main income sources are: social assistance benefits, parental allowance, child benefits, wages from work, and pensions. Frequently, because of poor financial management, they get into a bad financial situation, which is one of the reasons they seek help at our facility. We therefore taught them to manage money better and prevent such problems.
Project "Hlinené srdiečko"
- the project lasted two months; every Thursday students from Prešov University met with children and clients, where they jointly explored the secrets of pottery
- they made Christmas ornaments, angels, bells, and Christmas trees. Over six meetings we managed, thanks to workshop activities, to develop the fine motor skills of the children as well.
Project "Vianočná večera"
- a joint gathering of clients of the crisis center with social workers and sponsors of the bountiful Christmas supper
- clients also received gifts in the form of useful items as well as toys for the youngest
- more than one hundred people attended this event.
Project "Nový nábytok"
- thanks to help from Ministerstva práce, sociálnych vecí a rodiny SR, we were able to buy new furniture for about 33,200 euros
- clients could enjoy new wardrobes, beds, tables, and chairs
- it was possible to arrange 20 rooms and a common room.
In the future we can only wish for more objective opinions from the local residents in the immediate surroundings, as well as their effort to understand the importance of this facility. This is not a negative externality, as it may seem at first glance. After all, clients of the center not only pay for their roof over their heads (the monthly payment is approximately 30 percent of the mother’s income), but with their own effort and work they also keep the crisis center itself in order, something that other institutions could only dream of.
Author: Mgr. Firda Miroslav a spol.__The author works as head of the Crisis Center Košická Nová Ves
