Social aid & Emergency aid

Social aid

In principle, the aim of social assistance is to secure the livelihood of every person and thus to enable them to live in dignity. 

The law on social aid is very heterogeneous due to various distinctions. On the one hand, social assistance is a matter for the cantons. Federal law essentially only regulates the rules for determining which canton is responsible. In some cases, even the individual municipalities of a canton have their own social aid regulations. On the other hand, because social aid differentiates according to groups of persons.

Nevertheless, a group of basic principles runs through the entire social aid law. For example, the principle of individualisation, the principle of subsidiarity or the principle of coverage of needs. With these principles in mind, it is easier to critically assess the procedures and decisions of the social assistance authorities and to take a more targeted approach when looking at the cantonal or communal regulations.

The differentiation according to groups of persons leads to the fact that social assistance for persons in the asylum procedure, with asylum, with an F permit or without a residence permit are subject to different regulations and different degrees of the above-mentioned principles. In terms of social assistance law, persons with B asylum are in the best position, while those without regular residence are in the most precarious position (so called emergency aid). The Social Support & Civil Law team will be happy to assist you with any questions you may have.

• General information on Social Aid https://rl.skos.ch/lexoverview-home/ (guidelines of the swiss social aid conference )

Emergency aid

If people receive a negative decision regarding their asylum request, they have to leave our country. Often - for several reasons - it is not possible for these people to leave Switzerland in the period they should do so according to the authorities. As in Switzerland every person has the right to receive fundamental primary care, these people receive emergency aid (or "Nothilfe" in German). The services they receive can vary strongly depending in which Canton or even village/city they are. Normally they get 4-12 CHF per day and an accomodation. The people have a reporting obligation. This means they have to report to the responsible person in the accomodation every day. If they fail to do so, they do not get their money. The accomodations are often in a bad shape and sometimes even underground in civil defense facilities. There are even Cantons where the authorities only provide accomodation and food, but no money at all.

There were also other measures against people under emergency aid by the authorities like so called "containments", where they prohibit people from leaving a certain area for no reason at all. Also the police is checking the emergency aid accomodations regularly and also arrests people from time to time and issue them heavy fines (up to CHF 2'000.00) for illegal stay in Switzerland.

By the end of 2020, around 5'000 asylum seekers lived under this regime. There are cases known of people who lived and still live for several years in emergency aid. We try to help these people with legal aid as good as we can. If you have any questions or if your client needs help regarding this topic, please do not hesitate to reach out to the Social Support & Civil Law team.

• General information: Emegency aid recommendation by the conference of cantonal social departements https://ch-sodk.s3.amazonaws.com/media/files/91ce3677/4bd1/4c32/b6ec/aae9757e3388/2012.06.29_Nothilfeempfehlungen_Web_d.pdf