Far away from home

Immigrants, asylum seekers and the paperless suffer from homelessness. They are possibly thousands of kilometers away from home with bad luck when trying to find a new one. They suffer from discrimination when it comes to labor -and private housing markets and often have lower income levels. It’s estimated that one fifth of the homeless are immigrants. Left outside of the statistics are the homeless paperless in Finland. (Vva Ry).

Marja Katisko from Diakonia University of Applied Sciences states that she’s worried about the young immigrants’ homelessness. She has interviewed many young immigrants in the year of 2014 about their situations. Based on that she states that there are many reasons for one’s homelessness. Many times the issues start from financial struggles and family relations. Katisko finds that for a young immigrant, family affairs can become hard when people are trying to integrate to the new society. Relationships between the family can become strained and even fall out. (MTV News).

Discrimination on housing markets causes feelings of exclusion. When you’re excluded based on your skin color, language skills and other ethnic backgrounds, it can make you feel worthless and excluded from the society. It is important to recognize these issues and have services available. Especially when coming from a difficult background, having support is essential. (MTV News).

Another group of the homeless are the paperless. Their homelessness doesn’t show on the statistics, since there isn’t even any actual knowledge of how many people there are in Finland that lack the paperwork. Their situation can be seen in the 3^rd sector services. Without help from the society, the paperless easily become exploited and they won’t have anywhere to sleep at night. (MTV News).

Integration among all immigrants is essential on the well-being of the whole society. Often people have had to move from horrible situations just to face more of them. The more we have people falling off the society the more we face problems in our system. An important part of integration is to find housing. Housing allows you to build a new life in your new home. I can just try to imagine what it’s like to suddenly find yourself around strange people and a strange culture and having to stay in this stage of uncertainty living on the streets, not being able to start your new life. As Vva Ry states, a home is a human right without any exceptions. This means everyone regardless of their status and background.

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