The Swedish Social Services Act (SFS 2001:453) stipulates since 1982 that the municipal Social Committee should become well acquainted with the living conditions in the municipality. They should also participate in urban planning, and in cooperation with other public bodies, organizations, associations and individuals promote good living environments in the municipality. The development, planning and design of good living environments for older people is an endeavour of great complexity that demands collaboration between many actors. Housing and care for older people is an important area in which social servicesand urban planning could benefit from collaboration. Planning for older people has recently been indicated as urgent and necessary, especially in the light of changed demography in which the proportion of older people is increasing. A built environment that accommodates older people’s everyday needs embraces issues such as age-friendliness, care, socio-spatial inequality, inclusion, and innovation. This research program, CollAge, investigates cross-sectoral collaboration in Swedish municipalities between social eldercare, urban planning and Senior Citizens’ Councils as regards housing and care. With diverse qualitative methodologies the multidisciplinary team of scholars in social work, architecture and urban planning explore how eldercare interventions and services are managed and understood in municipal urban planning and development, and how older people’s preferences can contribute to improved quality of care in social services and housing provision. The ultimate aim of the programme is to develop a methodological tool – CollAge – to support, facilitate and structure collaboration between the three actors.
This article focuses on the stock of accommodation service units for people with psychiatric disabilities in Sweden and the classification of supported accommodation. We examined 122 units in 12 municipalities in Sweden and classified them according to the Simple Taxonomy for Supported Accommodation (STAX-SA). We found an obvious variation in the field and a movement into a recovery-oriented direction and towards individuality. There is an emphasis on Move-On that seems to expand into and beyond floating outreach support, and there is a relaxation of service units’ boundaries concerning commitment and target groups. The correspondence to STAX-SA was quite low (48%), and the applicability to ‘real world’ services was not satisfactory. When capturing variation and change in a rich dataset, STAX-SA is too reductive. However, STAX-SA was a successful point of departure in the analysis that opened up for identifying diversities and movement. We suggest some adjustments to increase its applicability.
The movement towards deinstitutionalisation of mental health services has created a space for new and community-based solutions in western countries, but the field still seems to lack coherent ideological and practical features. This is also evident for issues related to housing. The aim of this article is to examine the characteristics of supportive accommodation services for people with psychiatric disabilities in Sweden, according to the experiences of local service providers. The focus is placed on the services’ organizational setting, main orientation, and conceptual content. This article is based on a multiple case study of ten Swedish municipalities, purposely selected regarding size, location, and demographic features. Data mainly consist of interviews with key informants in the social service organisation. The results indicate the emergence of a new generation of service users with complex needs, who challenge both the organisation and the content of the service offered. Group homes and mobile housing support appeared as pillars in the service supply, but several local and pragmatically oriented solutions were also identified, as well as ambitions to scale down the extent of institutional settings. The guiding idea present at most sites is a strive towards increased autonomy among service users.