For Heidi (41), inspiration mainly comes from helping others. When she gets to see someone else feeling successful through her support, it makes her feel happy and motivated. She describes herself as a reliable, trustworthy person who enjoys small beauties of our world like little puppies on the street and values “life as it is; with its good and its bad – both sunshine and rain.”
Living in a big city like Helsinki managing a household with a job, sometimes overwhelms her: “I like to spend my free time in a relaxed way, a bit lazily. My ideal evening is curled up on the couch with a pillow, a blanket and a good TV show or a movie. It’s a time when I can just switch off.” She reflects on how much she values these quiet moments, especially compared to a time in her life that was defined by stress and fear.
Expert by experience
Heidi was born and raised in Helsinki, in a family with traditional values: “On paper we looked like a happy, traditional family, but in reality, it was far from easy for me. Home was nothing but a word to me. We never talked about our feelings, and expressing emotions simply wasn’t allowed.” As a result, she finds it difficult to set boundaries.
Following a challenging period, she was placed in an institution and subsequently endured a violent relationship. Upon escaping the abuse, she was left without stable housing and experienced homelessness. “It was such a difficult period in my life, both physically and mentally.”
After a rough time, Heidi decided she wanted to use her experience of homelessness to dissuade others from it. In 2019, she began working as an expert by experience at Vailla Vakinaista Asuntoa Ry (VVA). This NGO is dedicated to reducing homelessness by offering housing services, meals, administrative support, and more. Heidi believes the strength of VVA lies in the fact that all its employees have personal experience with homelessness. “We’ve struggled with the same feelings as the visitors. We want to show that you can make changes in your life and that your current situation doesn’t define your identity.”
Hamster wheel
In the past five years, VVA has grown tremendously as an organisation. “We have gone from two visitors a day to one hundred a day,” Heidi says. Therefore, she would like to change several aspects of the Finnish capital. “I would support improvements to municipal and mental health services and criminal law. In addition, I think it’s important to offer low-threshold places, and their availability should be much easier than it is.”
Heidi emphasizes the lack of woman-specific services. As a woman, working with the purpose of supporting others, she often encounters phenomena of exploitation, being taken for granted. Heidi thinks: “A woman is often seen as a property, while no opinions are asked from women. This feels like a hamster wheel.”
“It’s a brutal world and especially for a woman”
– Heidi
If she could have an impact on functional options, she would put more focus on services for women to achieve “an ideal form of equality” – offering emergency accommodations customized to meet women’s needs, gynaecologists for homeless women as the lack of these might be “life-threatening” in her opinion.
Sticking to the moment
Her dream is to provide a brighter life for her children: “It makes me happy to see them making different choices than I made. For the future I would like to get more education and travel new places. But for now, I try to stick to the moment and appreciate what I have today.”
