Subsistence in the summer: apply for student aid or social assistance from Kela
If you will be studying during the summer, the time to apply for student aid for the summer months is right now. Student aid includes the study grant and student loan in the summer, too. Summer studies do not affect the paying of general housing allowance. Please note, however, that if you have income from your summer job or your housing situation changes, we recommend applying for a review of the housing allowance. All of the above can easily be done through Kela’s eServices (only in Finnish or Swedish).
If you are still without a summer job despite trying to get one and have not found sensible summer studies either, you can apply for basic social assistance from Kela during the summer. Please note that Kela currently requires students to have their student loan disbursed for the entire academic year before applying for basic social assistance if their studies continue in the autumn. The practice regarding this may have varied before, but Kela has now specified it, which means that student loans that have not been but can be disbursed are now considered as income.
Justify the lack of sensible studies carefully so that the person processing your application can understand your situation even if they are unfamiliar with the issue. Your application should also state which jobs you have applied for.
Further information on basic social assistance for students can be found here.
In case you need social assistance for the summer months and are going to receive a tax refund, remember to take the refund’s potential effect on August’s social assistance into account. Tax refunds are now paid to most people in August. The tax refunds are considered as income when applying for social assistance, unless Kela considers the refund insignificant. In practice, this refers to a tax refund of €50 per person or €100 per family. When applying for social assistance, only the part of the tax refund that exceeds these sums is taken into account. In other words, if you receive a €70 tax refund, only €20 is taken into account.
Even after that you can resort to the social services of your municipality to help you out.
If you live in Helsinki:
https://www.hel.fi/helsinki/en/socia-health/socia-support/income-support/
In Espoo:
https://www.espoo.fi/en-US/Social_and_health_services/Social_Welfare_and_Income_Support
Also Ohjaamo Helsinki in Kamppi (Fredrikinkatu 48) helps 15–29-year-olds to find solutions in tricky circumstances: http://ohjaamo.hel.fi/
More information:
Hannele Kirveskoski, specialist
050 543 9608
hannele.kirveskoski@hyy.fi
