Hogar de Cristo was invited to the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development – U.N. NY -ECOSOC.

July 2024, U.N., New York.

Frame.

The 2024 session of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) took place between July 8 and 18, 2024, at the U.N., New York. Its theme was “Reinforcing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Eradicating Poverty in Times of Multiple Crises….”

The HLPF is the central U.N. platform for sustainable development. It plays an essential role in monitoring and reviewing the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals).

The U.N. adopted the SDGs in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030, all people will enjoy peace and prosperity. The 17 SDGs are integrated, so they recognize that action in one area will affect outcomes in others.

Invitation & Context.

On July 17, Juan Cristobal Romero, executive director at Hogar de Cristo in Chile, was honored and privileged to speak at the 2024 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) session. This was possible thanks to the Ambassador, Paula Narváez, invitation to the permanent Chilean Mission at the United Nations (U.N.) in New York—she chaired ECOSOC this last year. Also, Hogar de Cristo’s chaplain general, José F. Yuraszeck, accompanied the executive director to this high-level meeting.

Its objective was to share Hogar de Cristo’s view on how the first titanic objective of the 17 SDGs is evolving in Chile: Poverty Eradication.!

The circumstances for that setting—when the Hogar de Cristo will soon be celebrating its 80th year on October 19, 2024, working tirelessly to eradicate poverty—couldn’t be a better context, opportunity, and place to expose its long experience and intervention in this field.

Also, August marks the Month of Solidarity in Chile, which honors the life and legacy of Alberto Hurtado SJ, founder of the Hogar de Cristo, and renews our commitment to social justice in overcoming poverty and social exclusion.

Thus, Solidarity Month is an invitation to return to the source of inspiration that fueled and consecrated his whole life: social justice and the deep meaning of people experiencing poverty—well incarnated in his most significant and best-known apostolic work, the Hogar de Cristo Foundation.

So, it was a rare and terrific frame and context to expose how the foundation has built inclusion trajectories from Arica to Punta Arenas for almost 80 years in Chile -October 19 will marks its 80 anniversary. However, there is still a long way to go. The only avenue to make a coherent long-term impact is to incorporate all the above into public policies and budgets accordingly.

Juan Cristobal Romero’s view about Chile in the U.N.

He asked an essential question: Is it possible to end poverty?

Here is a summary of its intervention:

• According to the latest 17 SDGs report, 50% are behind, and over 30% are stagnating or reverting. So, at current rates, it is unlikely the world will meet the global goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030.
• Per Chile’s voluntary report issued in 2023, we decreased by 0.4 points compared with the previous year. Thus, we fell from 30th to 32nd place in the world ranking.
• Chile faces structural problems reflected in a persistent matrix of inequalities, obstructing its progress toward sustainable development.
• This inequality affects access to opportunities, especially for the most vulnerable, due to the lack of comprehensive policies connecting public and private offers.
• It is particularly evident in the case of older adults, people with disabilities, and those experiencing homelessness.
• Indeed, living on the streets represents one of the most acute and profound expressions of poverty.
• Homelessness is only “the tip of the iceberg” and the most visible shape from a constellation of exclusions, deficiencies, and rights violations that feed off each other.
• The 2030 Agenda’s guiding principle, “leaving no one behind,” implies special efforts to include populations with the most vulnerable rights violations.
• We cannot expect a future without poverty when over 100 million people in the world are experiencing homelessness (WEF, 2021).
• It is Chile’s case. According to government data, the number of people experiencing homelessness has increased by 37% in the last five years.
• The leading causes of the increase include the pandemic and its economic and health consequences, the massive migration phenomenon, and the housing crisis.
• To this increase, we must add that Chile has the highest rate of people experiencing homelessness in the continent: 31% spend an average of six years or more on this condition.
• Innovative and comprehensive public policies are the only way to address this complex social problem.
• At the opening of the HLPF, Mrs. Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the U.N., invited us to identify bold and transformative actions that leverage local expertise and alliances to implement the SDGs.
• One bold action worth highlighting is the Housing First program, developed five years ago by the Ministry of Social Development of Chile jointly with civil society organizations, and where the Hogar de Cristo Foundation is the leading operator of this program.
• The Housing First program aims to help people over 50 who have been experiencing homelessness for a long time living on the streets.
• It aims to help people overcome homelessness by providing them housing and social support.
• The outcome of the Housing First program at Hogar de Cristo shows that 99% of participants have kept their homes, 70% have reduced their alcohol/drug use, and 30% have generated independent income.
• On the other hand, according to Ministry of Economy studies, the annual cost per person per year is lower than the state spends on a person experiencing homelessness in a year.
• The Housing First program is an encouraging example of how poverty can be overcome by offering innovative and practical solutions to groups being left behind. What is discouraging is that this is only one example and not part of a comprehensive public policy.