Sawt Falasteen - 'Housing First' approach gets Swedish city's homeless off streets

Sitting on the sofa in his living room, the 56-year-old described feeling like he had an "invisible suitcase" next to him, always ready to pack up and go.

"It takes a long time before it disappears, if it ever disappears," Weiner told AFP.

Gothenburg, Sweden's second-largest city at more than 600,000 inhabitants, has seen a drastic reduction in the number of homeless people over the past decade after adopting a model known as "Housing First".

The municipality counted around 3,000 homeless people in 2026, out of whom 411 people were classified as acute homeless -- meaning either living on the street or in shelters.

Borko Grujic, head of operations at the Goteborgs Stadsmission non-profit, which runs the city's Housing First programme, explained that over the last decade they had seen about a 60-percent drop in the number of acute homeless.

In that time, the overall number had dropped by just under 40 percent.

A majority of Gothenburg's homeless people suffer from mental health struggles or substance abuse, according to the city's latest survey, Grujic added.

Nationally, homelessness is only evaluated every six years. While the last review in 2023 showed a decline from 2017, it was only about nine percent.

Those working with the issue give Gothenburg's adoption of the Housing First model much of the credit.

The programme prioritises putting people up in permanent housing first, serving as a base for other services like mental health support and addiction treatment.

Grujic explained that unlike other schemes -- where someone might lose their home if they fail a drug test -- the model provides people housing without requiring sobriety or other preconditions.

- 'A place of your own' -

The programme is on the "tenant's side" and the rules are in line with the regular legal code for tenants, so one relapse doesn't mean the end of your lease, Grujic said.

"The idea is that your home should be a secure foundation to stand on, so that you can then work on your other problems in life," he told AFP.

Those who receive housing are also put in contact with counsellors to help with issues such as substance abuse and mental health.

Weiner, who previously struggled with addiction and described his life before getting his apartment as "chaos", said the approach had been crucial to getting his life back on track.

"It's almost impossible to get anything done since your address is moving," he said, describing how he used to go back and forth between temporary housing and living on the street.

"It's so much easier when you have a home, a place of your own, to be able to relax and to be able to think about your own future," he said.

Grujic explained that about 80 to 90 percent of those given housing end up staying in their flats.

Under the programme, Goteborgs Stadsmission first acquires the lease, but many of the tenants end up taking over the leases themselves after about two years, he said.

In 2022, the Swedish government adopted a long-term strategy to combat homelessness that encouraged municipalities to adopt the Housing First model.

But according to Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare, only 126 municipalities out of the country's 290 applied for grants to implement the model.

Gothenburg started its programme 14 years ago, and Grujic gave credit to local politicians for daring to stick with it.

"In other municipalities, there hasn't been the same awareness of Housing First," Grujic said.

He also noted that the city has a large number of public housing apartments, making it easier to find places to rent.

After beginning in New York in the 1990s, the Housing First model has since spread around the world, despite criticism from some claiming the approach fails to address substance abuse.

J.Saleh--SF-PST