The Swedish Property Federation (Fastighetsägarna) in Stockholm has signed an agreement with Stockholm city council covering the provision of 100 apartments.
The apartments will be spread across the city, Dagens Nyheter writes.
“For this to work it is important that it is not the same apartment or stairwell that is used time after time,” said the federation’s CEO Christer Jansson to the newspaper, something over which Stockholm mayor Sten Nordin agrees.
The thinking behind the scheme is that it should not be obvious that these apartments are being used for this purpose. If all goes to plan then the intention is that the tenants will be offered a permanent rental contract for the apartments.
Jansson and Nordin are parties to the agreement.
“It is a question of integrating these people,” Nordin said, describing the agreement as historic and opened up the possibility of further cooperation with the federation.
Stockholm’s social welfare service (Socialförvaltningen) has reviewed the situation in the city and concluded that there is a demand for 140-160 training apartments.
When a survey was last made in the spring there were 3,081 homeless people in Stockholm, 150 fewer than in 2006. But only a small proportion of these are thought to be capable of being able to learn to manage their own housing.
One of the members of the federation, Wallenstam Bostad AB, intends to participate in the agreement and offer 20 apartments, according to the firm’s CEO Mathias Aronsson.
“We have been given the possibility to build apartments here in the city and this is a way for us to put something back,” he said to the newspaper.