estonia
salvation army estonia
The Salvation Army was founded in 1927 in Estonia and had to close its activities during World War II, to restart in 1995. Now we are active mainly as a church in 5 towns in Estonia with most places serving the marginalized in the communities. In Tallinn a rehabilitation centre also has a programme with football.
As part of the rehabilitation program, the men, if physically able, have a weekly training session indoors. During the year the Salvation Army organizes (in co-operation with other organizations) three tournaments, two in Tallinn (June and December) and one in Tartu in March.
Through the football activities, we manage to keep in contact with quite a few ex-clients who come and enjoy from time to time the sessions or tournaments.
In Tallinn are the weekly training sessions for the men.
Country statistics
11 out of 189 in Human Development Index rating
(UNDP, 2019)
Average annual salary per person $49,780 (World Bank, 2021)
54% Of families who are homeless are immigrants (FEANTSA, 2017)
Finland has a population of 5.5 million, with the vast majority, 85.6%, living in urban areas. The population of the capital city, Helsinki, is 1.3 million. Finland transformed from a farm/forest economy to a diversified modern industrial economy, with a per capita income among the highest in Europe.
In addition to a modern industrial economy, Finland also has a modern welfare state, which includes high quality education, promotion of equality and a national social welfare system.
As the only Nordic state to join the Euro, Finland has an unemployment rate of 6.63% (as of 2019) and a youth unemployment rate, ages 15-24, of 21.4% (CIA Factbook, 2020).
Finland has continuously decreased the number of homeless individuals over the last 30 years, from over 16,000 in 1989 to around 4000. In 2020, practically nobody was sleeping rough on any given night in Finland. Adopting a ‘housing first’ strategy, Finland provides people experiencing homelessness with immediate, independent, permanent housing (Ecoscope, 2021).
In 2020, Finland reported 1275 registered asylum seekers, most of them coming from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Russia (UNHCR, 2021). 54% Of homeless families are immigrants (FEANTSA, 2017).
In the late 1980s there were nearly 20,000 homeless people in Finland. In 2017 there were 7,112, with 1,893 long-term homeless, marking a decrease of 64% over 30 years (FEANTSA, 2017; ARA, 2017).
Finland is on track to achieve near eradication of recurrent and long-term homelessness, and approaching a time when experiencing any form of homelessness will be uncommon (EOH, 2017).
STORIES from the region
