“Sharing the Power – Working together: Participation as a tool to solve homelessness” was the motto of this year’s FEANTSA European Conference2. On this occasion more than 300 participants; service providers together with service users and other experts, came together in Copenhagen on the 23rd of October 2009 to discuss key questions around participation and homelessness and exchange good practices. The European Conference was certainly an important milestone for FEANTSA’s work on participation. The questions raised during the two plenary sessions and ten different workshops will require a thorough discussion and follow-up and this article aims to provide some framework for this. However, the conference was not FEANTSA’s first initiative on participation but rather the result of several years of preparation and debate around participation and empowerment within the network. When FEANTSA adopted its Statement of Values in 2005, the rights of service users, including the right to participate in decision making that affects them, were clearly highlighted. At the same time FEANTSA, together with its UK member Off The Streets and into Work (OSW)3 consulted member organisations on existing participation practices in the different countries. The results were drawn together in the report “Involving Homeless People in Decision-making affecting the Services that they use”4.