Homelessness in Sweden

In the past year or so, I have been researching the state of homelessness across the US in an effort to help our neighborhood (and adjacent neighborhoods) deal with a rising homeless population.  These are all longstanding residential neighborhoods of mostly small business owners and professionals and have been for some 50-90 years.  The rise in homelessness is not an issue of neighbors becoming homeless but of homeless moving into areas within these neighborhoods.

In some of the earlier research, I discovered, to my surprise, that homelessness has actually been falling in the US over the past ten or fifteen years.  There are certain cities, of which Atlanta has been one, where homelessness has been rising but this is not a general trend.  It is falling nationwide.

In addition, the cities where homelessness has risen the most are those where the local city government has been most committed to reducing homelessness through shelter availability, housing first initiatives, special programs for alcohol and drug dependency, programs for the mentally ill, etc.

The very poorest states and counties have among the lowest rates of homelessness.  

My impression from the past research is that most homeless programs are essentially useless without enforcement compliance.  In other words, when the homeless are offered these various programs on a voluntary basis, they decline them in large majorities.  As best I can tell, take-up rates are at best 5-15%.  

It has appeared that those cities and counties do best are those where there is enforcement in combination with coercion.  In other words, the homeless are arrested for illegal acts such as trespassing or public intoxication, or indecent exposure, etc.  In some jurisdictions, it appears, though I cannot prove, that the local authorities have created unofficial diversion programs.  The arrested homelessness person will be charged, tried and sent to prison for an easily provable offense such as trespassing or they have the choice of being diverted into some pertinent programs such as alcohol/drug abuse treatment program, mental health program, etc.  

That is my guess as to what is happening.  Elsewhere, simple availability of programs is a waste of time and resources.  Unless forced (as with a choice between program and jail), most elect to remain homeless.

The rub of the issue is two-fold.  Both are philosophically excellent concerns.  There is a reluctance to use discretionary law enforcement to target individuals.  We are a nation of laws and not of men.  We value equality before the law.  We do not want authorities to discriminate between citizens as to which laws are enforced against whom.

The second concern is also legitimate.  We are extremely leery, in part due to past abuses, of allowing government to compel behavior.  There have been horrific episodes when it was much easier to commit people to a mental institution and that ease was abused to confine inconvenient people rather than only people with mental health or substance abuse conditions.  We are right to be leery of making it easier to commit individuals.

Which leaves us on the horns of a dilemma.  If we accept that the law should be enforced equally and we also accept that the State should not be able to easily compel individuals without trial, what can we do about the homeless whose law-breaking is usually nuisance rather than capital and who decline programs available to them?

All my work has focused on the US and jurisdictional comparisons.  I have not done any international comparisons largely due to differences in definitions of homelessness, differences in legal structures, and differences in measurement rigor.

It occurred to me today that I really ought to look at Sweden.  They tend to have very rigorous social economic measurement regimens.  They tend to have solid sociology research.  I lived in Sweden for six years as a child and with Google translate can stumble through Swedish articles.

So how has Sweden done with homelessness and the treatment of such? In particular, do diversionary programs work better there than here?

I was surprised to find homelessness more prevalent in Sweden (36/10,000 residents) than in the US (17.7/10,000).  It has to be because Sweden must be using a more expansive definition than in the US but I cannot find any research which quantifies the size of that definition differential.  As best I can tell from ESPN Thematic Report on National strategies to fight homelessness and housing exclusion, Sweden, 2019, it seems like the expansive definition might be responsible for half the 36/10,000 rate, still making Sweden's homelessness rate close to that of the US (18/10,000 versus 17.7/10,000).

The additional surprise is that homelessness is rising in Sweden whereas it has been falling in the US.

Even if Sweden and the US were the same though, I would still be surprised as Sweden has such deep welfare programs and so much greater cultural tolerance of State interventions for the communal good than in the US.  Granted that was some 40-50 years ago and I am aware of many changes (in terms of social policy, legislation, and in terms of refugee populations which are very disproportionately overrepresented among the homeless) since then but none of that awareness prepared me for Sweden having a larger homelessness problem than the US.  

Part of the explanation might be that recent Swedish homeless policy has centered on the Housing First program which has not been demonstrated to alleviate homelessness in any jurisdiction in which it has been implemented over the past twenty-nine years.

ESPN Thematic Report on National strategies to fight homelessness and housing exclusion, Sweden, 2019 is an interesting read but does not provide the clear cut answers desired.  Sweden has an urban camper problem perhaps of similar magnitude to the US.  Sweden has tried to force homeless treatment down to the municipal level which should provide customization to circumstances but at the expense of consistency.  

They have the same challenges in terms of measurement as in the US.  They also seem to have a similar problem in that none of the programs implemented so far really ameliorate homelessness.