Nearly 10,000 children live in homelessness in Sweden – may be more

Sweden’s city missions have released their annual homelessness report – and it is a dark picture painted.

Especially when it comes to children and young people who suffer from homelessness.

When the National Board of Health and Welfare mapped homelessness in Sweden, it was concluded that at least 9,400 children are affected by homelessness. That figure is probably just the tip of an iceberg.

– There is a large dark figure, the National Board of Health and Welfare also notes in its report. This is because many groups do not end up in the statistics. If you cancel your contract before you get evicted, you do not end up in the eviction statistics, says Jonas Rydberg, secretary general of Sweden’s city missions.

How could it be like this?

There is certainly no easy or short answer to that question, but according to Jonas Rydberg, much is about the Swedish housing policy being neglected.

– We do not live in the same way we did 50 years ago. But the housing market has not kept up. It is not uncommon for you to be single with children in an apartment. Many who come to us cannot afford a long -term lease, we have seen that for a long time, he says.

He continues:

– Sweden’s housing supply policy is based on a general housing supply without special efforts. If you have a low salary, there should be supplements such as housing allowance and there should be a variety of apartments. But it doesn’t work. Other countries have more and more switched to special efforts where, for example, apartments with lower rents or where the state in some cases go in and subsidize rents.

Sweden’s city missions believe that measures like those mentioned by Jonas Rydberg can turn the ship in the right direction.

– We can see that the Swedish model has crashed. The housing allowance has been depleted a long time ago. The net salary of some groups has not kept up. What is being built is not priceless, and not all access the stock. That’s the big problem.

The government has launched a homelessness strategy and right now the National Board of Health and Welfare has a government assignment to investigate why the number of evictions is increasing, and to propose changes to counteract this. Sweden’s city missions welcome the government’s work – but want to see more.

– The problem is that it is dutt politics, there will be no impact. Politics listens, but they do not have the ability to do anything in common across the block boundaries, says Jonas Rydberg.