Have you lost your home? Here is how Kela can help you 

Six tips for the unhoused

1. Contact the Digital and Population Data Services Agency and tell them that you do not have a home. If you do this, Kela and other authorities will get information on your housing status directly from the Population Information System if they need it. You can also provide a temporary address if you have one.
2. Contact Kela and tell us more about your situation and the reasons why you have lost your home. You can also tell us if you are temporarily living with a friend or a relative because you do not have a permanent address. If you do this, Kela’s customer service specialist can assess your situation as a whole and tell you what benefits you can apply for.
   You can submit a call request in the OmaKela e-service (available in Finnish and Swedish only) or while waiting in queue during a customer service call. The cost of phone calls and waiting time on the phone is charged according to the price list of your phone operator. When we call you back, the call is free of charge.
3. If you do not have a permanent address, you can see all decision notices and letters Kela has sent you in OmaKela. If you use the poste restante service offered by Posti, Kela will send all decision notices and letters to your Posti pick-up point. If you are temporarily staying with someone else, you can also ask Kela to send all mail to their address.
   You can visit any Kela service point and any municipal service point. Use our service point search tool to check where you can go to access Kela’s services.
4. If you lose your home before you have found a new one, Kela can sometimes give you a voucher that covers the costs of storing your furniture and other belongings at a storage facility as part of your basic social assistance. To qualify, you will need a housing plan (asumisen suunnitelma) issued by your wellbeing services county or the social welfare authorities of your municipality.
5. Losing your home does not affect the payment of certain benefits such as unemployment benefits or financial aid for students. You may have the right to basic social assistance from Kela, but it is a last-resort form of assistance. All income and assets you have available to you will affect how much basic social assistance you can get. Other social security benefits you get also count as income. You may also have the right to get supplementary or preventive social assistance from your municipality.
6. Once you have found a new home you want to move into, you can apply for basic social assistance from Kela to pay for your security deposit or moving costs. The rent of your new home must be in line with what is considered to be reasonable in your municipality.
   Once you have found a new permanent place to live, you can apply for general housing allowance from Kela.

There is always a story behind why someone does not have a permanent place to live, but being homeless is usually not easy. The social welfare authorities of your wellbeing services county or municipality and many organisations offer advice and help to the unhoused.