Right to housing is guarantied by The Constitution of Poland:
“Public authorities shall pursue policies to satisfy the housing needs of the citizens, in particular combating homelessness, promoting the development of low-income housing and supporting initiatives aimed at acquisition of a home by each citizen.”

Implementation of the right to housing is still far behind The Constitution. Since over fifteen years major service provider for the homeless has been non-governmental organizations. Naturally, they started to grow in niches were social problems were concentrated and addressed neither by commercial institutions nor public authorities. Most founding came from private donors and European sources (PHARE, ACCESS) but organizations claimed public financing as in fact what they were doing was one of the statutory responsibilities of the state. Public administration was not eager to accept it based on argumentation that non profits are hard to control their services keep no standards and are too expensive, besides they are established for private not public purposes.

 

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