Income support

You may be entitled to basic social assistance if your income and assets do not cover your essential daily needs, such as housing and food.

Read more on the Kela website(extrernal link)

If you have specific expenses for which you cannot get basic social assistance, you can apply for supplementary or preventive social assistance through the City of Espoo.

First, apply for basic social assistance through Kela. State in your application that you also wish to apply for supplementary or preventive social assistance. You can ask Kela to transfer your application to the municipality. If you have already received a decision on basic social assistance, you can apply for supplementary or preventive social assistance directly through Espoo.

• Apply for supplementary or preventive social assistance online (extrernal link)(in Finnish). Please sign in to the service with your bank ID or mobile certificate.

Through our online service, you can check the status of your application for supplementary or preventive social assistance and see information about the payment of the benefit. You can also see the decisions on supplementary or preventive social assistance. 

• Read the instructions for granting supplementary and preventive social assistance in Espoo(extrernal link)

You will receive a decision on supplementary or preventive social assistance within seven working days.

The City of Espoo will make a decision on social assistance within seven working days of receiving your application. This requires that you have submitted all necessary documents with your application.

• Here you can find the average processing times of social assistance applications in Espoo.

If you believe that there is an error in a decision made by the City of Espoo regarding supplementary or preventive social assistance, you can request a rectification.

You should first contact the employee who made the decision. It is the quickest way to have possible rectifications made.

If the issue cannot be resolved, you can submit a written claim for a revised decision with a free-format document or with a claim form that is also available at the offices of Family and Social Services.

You must submit your claim for a revised decision within 30 days of being informed of the decision on social assistance. Your claim for a revised decision must contain the reasons based on which you are requesting a revised decision. More detailed instructions are provided with the decision on social assistance.

Send or take your claim for a revised decision to the City of Espoo Registry Office(extrernal link).

The Individual Matters Subcommittee of the Social and Health Services Committee is responsible for handling claims for a revised decision.

If you believe there is an error in a basic social assistance decision made by Kela, you should submit a rectification request to Kela(extrernal link). The City of Espoo does not comment on any decisions made by Kela concerning basic social assistance.

The City of Espoo will grant a payment commitment voucher to cover funeral expenses if:

• the deceased person has regularly received social assistance, or;
• the deceased person’s estate has no assets.
  

The lack of assets is verified by presenting the deceased person’s bank statements and most recent tax decision. If the tax decision shows that there are fixed assets, but there are no funds in the bank account, burial may be granted by charging the expenses from the estate.

You can apply for a payment commitment voucher with a free-format application through our social services office(extrernal link). In addition to the deceased person’s personal information, the application must include the contact information of the relative who is applying for the grant.

You can send the application by post or take it personally to our social services office or any of the City of Espoo Service Points. You cannot submit the application online.