Homelessness as Politics and Market

Abstract

From an international perspective, a common means for both preventing and counteracting homelessness is social housing, that is, publicly owned and regulated housing for those with serious difficulties in finding accom-modation on the regular housing market, usually for housing applicants with incomes below a certain level (Fitzpatrick and Stephens 2007).¹ However, social housing has never been a model that has been contem-plated in Sweden — since the 1940s Swedish housing politics have found a substitute for it (Sahlin 2008). Until the 1990s, municipal housing companies were an integral part of Swedish housing policy. Established in the 1940s and 50s, these were owned and run by the municipality, and publicly financed and regulated. Their function was to provide good housing for all, regardless of income. Access to housing within this sector of the housing market depended on the length of time the applicant had spent in the housing queue, though housing applicants with social or medical problems were given priority. However, in the 1990s, the social responsibility of the municipal housing companies was abolished in most municipalities. The research that forms the basis for this chapter was conducted in Gothenburg municipality, on the west coast of Sweden.² In Gothenburg today it is explicitly stated that the municipal housing companies should operate in the same manner as any other actor in the housing market. This follows the official line of the Swedish Association of Public Housing Companies (ibid.).