En jämförande policyanalytisk studie om varför hemlösheten minskar i Finland men inte i Sverige

Sammanfattning: Homelessness is a problem in Sweden and other countries, where the number of homeless is increasing. The only country in the EU with an opposite trend is Finland. Given that Finland and Sweden are similar in many aspects, such as adopting national policy documents to reduce the number of homelessness, the question arises as to why the number of homeless is declining in Finland while increasing in Sweden. The purpose of this study is to draw lessons from Finland’s measures to influence the political debate in Sweden on decreasing homelessness. A policy analysis of Sweden’s homelessness strategy and Finland’s homlessness programs was used to achieve that. The results showed a difference between Sweden and Finland´s ways of formulating their policy documents, where Finland was more influenced by New Public Management (NPM). However, it is not possible to draw a certain conclusion that this is the single factor that has made Finland's work on combating homelessness successful as other factors differ between the countries; i.e. population size and population increase. The conclusion is that further research is necessary and Sweden can learn from Finland when it comes to a more NPM inspired design of the policy documents.