Govt plans to raise accommodation capacity of shelters

The government will increase the accommodation capacity of shelters for victims of domestic violence in the country, said the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) in a press release.

With the Keski-Uusimaa shelter opening its doors to clients on February 11, there are now 29 such shelters across the country and there will be a total of 211 family places available by this spring, said the press release.

It also said as additional funding was granted by the parliament in December 2019, funding for setting up new remote shelter units can also be applied for this spring. Remote shelter units are aimed at meeting the need for shelter services in sparsely populated areas.

“A remote shelter unit is an individual client place or a number of individual client places, which the service provider in charge of the remote shelter unit provides in collaboration with the appointed shelter. Remote shelter units are always located in connection with a social welfare or healthcare service unit operational round the clock,” said Joonas Peltonen, development manager in charge of shelter services at THL. “In sparsely populated areas, remote shelter units enable our clients to find secure living and psychosocial support, despite the long distances. Potential locations for remote shelter units include Kainuu, the eastern parts of North Ostrobothnia, and southwest Lapland,” THL Senior Specialist Suvi Nipuli said.

According to preliminary THL data, 5,220 clients used the services of shelters last year.

“The number of clients appears to have increased by approximately 3 per cent, as there were a total of 5,063 clients in shelters in 2018. This increase in client volume was moderate compared to the increase of as much as 17 per cent in 2017–2018,” said Peltonen.

Based on feedback collected from the shelters, THL said the users of the shelters are primarily satisfied with the services they receive. The inmates of the shelters were especially happy with the confidentiality of the service, their sense of security during the service provision, and location of the shelters.