Mid Sweden University

The purpose of this study is to investigate how social services in the municipality of Östersund work to counter homelessness. This is done by examining how the authority defines homelessness, its responsibility for the target group and its services and future challenges. In this study we use a qualitative method where we have interviewed officials in the social services about the problem of homelessness in Östersund. The result shows that the social service defines homelessness in accordance with the National Board of Health and Welfare's (Socialstyrelsens) definition, but that they have reworked to adapt the services for different homeless groups. The authority's responsibility for homelessness in the municipality is followed by guidelines from the National Board of Health and Welfare, but at the same time the authorities place a great responsibility on the individual himself for solving his homelessness. The authority has a number of different services for target groups that have problems with homelessness, but there are a number of flaws within the services. The municipality of Östersund needs a better cooperation between instances and the application of new models to make the service more effective for reducing homelessness.