The Federal public planning service for Social Integration[1], anti-Poverty Policy, Social Economy and Federal Urban Policy (PPS SI) is a federal public service created in 2003, which strives to guarantee that all persons living in poverty can live with dignity. For more than 15 years, the PPS SI has upheld the right of citizens to social integration, striving to ensure that the people who fall through the cracks of social security and end up in precariousness can live their lives with dignity.
"The PPS SI prepares, implements, evaluates, and monitors an inclusive federal policy for social integration that guarantees long-term, fundamental social rights to all".
The PCSW are one of the main partners of the PPS SI. They work on the ground to enable the most socio-economically disadvantaged people to participate in civic life, via the minimum income, employment measures, urgent medical assistance, the settlement bonus for the homeless, the rental guarantee, heating allowance, etc.
But the work of the PPS SI falls under a broader framework of tackling and preventing poverty. As such, the PPS SI has created a new role: experience experts in poverty and social exclusion, with a view to bridging the missing link between people in a situation of poverty and social exclusion, and the federal public services. The PPS SI also works on the Housing First project (which works towards the social integration of homeless people through housing), the MIRIAM project (for single mothers who rely on the services of the PCSW), the federal anti-poverty plan, etc.
"Living together better is not just a slogan, it is also a source of motivation in everyday life".
The PPS SI also works in the food aid sector. Thanks to the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD), Belgium receives resources from the European Union that allow it to offer food aid and/or material assistance to the people concerned. With the support of this Fund, every year the PPS Social Integration supplies PCSW and associations with products to be distributed free of charge to the most deprived throughout Belgium, in collaboration with the country's food banks.
Finally, the PPS SI works together on the urban cohesion policies of large cities, in particular through mediation and municipal administrative sanctions.
The PPS SI in a nutshell
Objectives of the PPS SI
- Upholding the right to social integration;
- Tackling poverty and social exclusion in all their forms;
- Acting for the social cohesion and sustainable development of large cities;
- Ensuring integration, by giving priority to social assistance;
- Reimbursing the minimum income and social assistance to the PCSW.
Values
- Respect;
- Quality and customer focus;
- Openness to change;
- Equal opportunities and diversity.
[1] Various public planning services (PPS) have been set up, alongside the federal public services. They handle specific, one-off cases relating to social issues that require coordination between multiple FPSs, such as equal opportunities policy or sustainable development.