Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 26th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview X. Non-Governmental Organizations in CEE Author(s) Reka Zsuzsanna Mathe Ludovika University of Public Service Budapest Hungary Title Delivering Services to the Homeless. Is Cooperation Possible? File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Reka Zsuzsanna Mathe Abstract Civil society organizations (CSOs) have an important role in delivering services to the most varied groups, assuring their well-being and growth. In most cases, the services provided by CSOs address market failures. Therefore, the ability to cater for the clients’ or beneficiaries’ needs is greatly influenced by the policies linked to correcting particular negative externalities, and by the cooperation between CSOs and the state. This paper examines the specific situation of the services delivered to the homeless in Hungary, more specifically, Budapest. The Article XXII of the Fundamental Law of Hungary adopted in 2011, specifies that the Government shall strive to guarantee housing for every homeless person, while acknowledging that the Parliament or local governments may outlaw the use of certain public spaces for habitation, criminalizing the homeless. Through a single case-study, this paper tries to find the answer to the following questions: how has this particular policy influenced the ability of CSOs to cater their services to the homeless, a social group that is generally very reluctant to accepting outside help? Have the CSOs active in this field taken any measures to influence the policymakers and if yes, to what extend would they agree that their actions were successful? Using the snow-ball method semi-structures interviews were taken and coded using MAXQDA.
