Hundreds of unemployed EU citizens apply for income supplements in Helsinki

Out-of-work Estonians flock to welfare offices

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With the current recession, hundreds of foreign citizens living in the north and east of Helsinki have applied for income support from the city’s social services department.
      Most of the applicants are Estonians, who, as citizens of the European Union, are entitled to come to Finland to work if they have work.
      Until last year, Estonians easily found work in Helsinki as construction workers and cleaners, for instance. When the economic crisis took hold, many of them were left unemployed, and now many are applying for income supplements to make ends meet.
     
The Social Services Department of the City of Helsinki is wondering what to do with all of the applicants, most of whom are EU citizens, who see themselves as permanent residents of Finland.
      Estonian citizens began coming to Finland a few years ago. Short-term jobs were plentiful until about a year ago, when the economy started to suffer.
      Few of those affected were employed in a way that would entitle them to income-linked unemployment security, which means that income supplements, which are available as a last resort for unavoidable expenses, have been their only option.
      “People came here assuming that there would be enough work. Now they have been made redundant, and housing subsidies and basic unemployment benefits are not enough to pay off a housing loan”, says Eija Huovila, the leading social worker at the Helsinki Social Services Department’s Malmi office in the north of Helsinki.
      The city’s social workers have granted the applicants a few month’s worth of income supplements on a case by case basis, but some of the beneficiaries have been customers of the department for nearly a year.
     
Legislation and guidelines are seen as vague, and the Social Services Department would like further instructions on how to deal with this new group of customers.
      The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has not yet responded to requests for guidelines on how long they should provide benefits to this new group of customers.


Links:
  Helsinki City Social Services Department

Helsingin Sanomat