Users’ Choice in Providing Services to the Most Vulnerable Homeless People

Several municipalities in Norway have tried the Housing First model to facilitate permanent housing for homeless people with substance abuse problems and/or mental illness. This article discusses users’ experiences from receiving social support as part of the Housing First programme. In particular, the article discusses the users’ experiences with the model’s emphasis on users’ choice and self-determination. The analysis shows that what the programs practise is not entirely freedom of choice for the participants but a greater respect of the users’ knowledge, perspectives, and opinions as a starting point for interventions. The analysis shows that participants and staff engage in joint reflection work to help the participants take more reflected decisions in their life. The article discusses how this method can contribute to overcome a diagnostic approach to marginalised and often stigmatised users and provide more personalised and effective services. The discussions draw on data from an evaluation of two trial projects of the Housing First model. The article is mainly based on an analysis of 16 qualitative interviews with users that participated in the projects

Sammensatte levekårsproblemer blant innsatte i norske fengsler

Artiklene i Samfunnsspeilet er tilgjengelige fra SSBs nettsider: http://www.ssb.no/ssp/Levekårsundersøkelsen blant innsatte viser at en betydelig andel har problemer i forhold til sentrale levekårsområder som utdanning, inntekt, bolig og helse. Mange har problemer på flere områder samtidig, og det er en klar sammenheng mellom opphopning av levekårsproblemer og det å ha sittet i fengsel flere ganger

Nordic 0 – 24 collaboration on improved services to vulnerable children and young people. First interim report

The Nordic countries are known for their extensive welfare states producing high levels of welfare for their residents across the life course. Still, there are rising concerns related to the situation of vulnerable children and their fam-ilies, not least of which are the early school leavers and young people not in education, employment or training (NEET). In 2017, as a response to these challenges, the Nordic Council of Ministers initiated the Nordic 0–24 project. The overall agenda of the project is to prevent the social exclusion of vulner-able children and young people, and to prevent school dropout and future marginalisation in the labour market. The project’s aim is to improve services in the Nordic countries that are directed at vulnerable children and young people between the ages of 0 and 24 years by means of improving cross-sec-toral collaboration. The project’s starting point is that improved cross-sec-toral collaboration at the state, regional and municipal levels is necessary to provide more coherent, higher quality services. The project comprises cases from all the Nordic countries (Denmark, Fin-land, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) and the autonomous islands (Greenland and Aaland)—the Faroe Islands participate in the Nordic 0–24 project, but without a specific national case. The cases serve as national examples of cross-sectoral collaboration in the delivery of services to the 0–24 age group. The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training is in charge of the project management, and the project period will continue through 2020. Fafo Institute of Labour and Social Research has, in collaboration with VID Specialized University, been assigned the task of carrying out a process eval-uation of the Nordic 0–24 project. In this first interim report from the process evaluation, we provide an overview of the evaluation’s design. Furthermore, we present a model developed to examine how the national cases may serve as sources for identifying factors that contribute to improved collaboration and more coherent service delivery for vulnerable children and young people. As a background for future analyses, the national policy context of the in-volved cases and relevant national welfare systems and services are also de-scribed.publishedVersio

ICT and employment

The report is witten in a joint project between the Work Research Institute (WRI) and Fafo. Editor is Inger Lise Skog Hansen, Fafo. Wri-report 2009:2 / Fafo-paper 2009:02

Å leve livet midt på scenen : en studie om det å være ung med bevegelseshemming

Denne studien handler om det å leve med en synlig funksjonshemming. Fokus er på annerledeshetens betydning i møte med andre, og funksjons-hemmedes mestring av de utfordringer funksjonshemmingen med-fører. Synligheten er viktig, annerledesheten kan ikke skjules. Infor-m-a-n-tene opplever at de legges merke til i alle sammenhenger og dette har medført stor grad av refleksiv bevissthet i konstruksjon av sosial identitet. Dette er årsaken til at studien har fått tittelen "Å leve livet på en scene". Den konkrete problemstilling for studien er: Hvordan forholder unge bevegelseshemmede seg til det å ha en synlig funksjonshemming i møte med andre? Hvordan forvalter bevegelses-hemmede sin sosiale identitet i møte med omgivelsene? Hvordan mestrer de utfordringer som funksjons-hemmingen medfører? Hvordan konstruerer de seg selv, og kategoriene funksjons-hemming og normalitet? Informantenes opplevelser og erfaringer i møte med omgivelsene danner grunnlag for studiens empiriske analyse. Den empiriske analyse er basert på kvalitative intervjuer med rullestolbrukere i alderen 16 - 23 år. Innled-ning-svis diskuteres ulike forståelser av funksjons-hemming. Denne studien bygger på er en konstruktivistisk forståelse. Til-nær-mingen flytter fokus fra funksjonshemmedes problemer med å fylle roller, til hva som skjer i møte mellom individets handling og den sosiale virkelighet. Det er hvordan bevegelseshemmingen blir oppfattet, fortolket og tillagt mening som konstruerer funksjonshemming. Det er valgt et sosial-konstruktivistisk perspektiv til feltet. I kapittelet om teoretisk tilnærming blir det redegjort for hva et sosial-konstruktivistisk perspektiv vil si, samt begrepene diskurs og definisjons-makt. Disse begrepene blir brukt til å beskrive de rammene og strukturene som både sosial konstruksjon og personlig konstruksjon av funksjons-hemming foregår i forhold til. Her blir det også gitt en redegjørelse for anvendelse av begreper fra Goffmans stigmateori i den empiriske analyse. Endelig blir sentrale begreper som mestring og identitet diskutert. Studiens empiriske analyser peker på at normaliteten er en naturlig referansesamme for informantene. 30 år etter at integreringsideologien fikk sitt gjennomslag tar unge bevegelseshemmede normaliteten for gitt. Utfordringen for unge bevegelseshemmede er ikke er å bli integrert, men å bli inkludert og akseptert som likeverdige deltakere. I møte med andre opp-lever infor-mantene ofte at deres synlige annerledeshet for-tolkes på en slik måte at de ikke blir akseptert som likeverdige del-takere, funksjons-hemmingen er et sterkt menings-bærende tegn. Den syn-lige funksjons-hemming medfører ut-fordringer i møte med omgivelsene som må mestres. Hvordan informantene velger å fremstå er basert på en bevisst refleksjon omkring det at de har funksjonshemming og fore-stillinger om omgiv-el-s-enes reaksjon på denne. Funksjonshemmingen forsøkes skilt ut som et fenomen som oppstår i møte med om-givelsene, ikke en egenskap ved dem som personer. Informantene benytter ulike strategier for å bryte igjennom stereotype forestillinger. Felles for alle strate-giene er ønsket om å tone ned funksjons-hemmingen for å fremheve de ordinære sidene av seg selv og markere tilhørighet til andre kategorier som jevnaldergruppen, kjønn og fritids-interesser. Konstruksjon av sosiale identitet er et refleksivt prosjekt. Kroppen er trukket inn i dette refleksive prosjekt. Klær og utseende benyttes som rekvisitter for å signalisere hvem man er. Informantene lener seg til en heterogen normalitetsdiskurs hvor funksjons-hemming kun er en annerledesdimensjon i et heterogent samfunn, ikke et avvik. Gjennom oppdragelse har foreldrene bidratt til en selvforståelse hos informantene som normale og likeverdige deltaker. Denne selvforståelse styrkes i samhandling med venner og familie, og fungerer som et filter mot omgivelsenes stigmatisering

Funksjonshemmede på arbeidsmarkedet

Dette notatet handler om relasjonen til arbeidsmarkedet for mennesker med funksjonsnedsettelser. Ambisjonen for notatet er hovedsakelig å gi en oversikt over situasjonen på arbeidsmarkedet for funksjonshemmede i Norge, i hovedsak basert på data fra SSBs Arbeidskraftundersøkelser. Notatet er en del av prosjektet «Funksjonshemning, arbeidsliv og velferdsstat», et samarbeid mellom Fafo og Arbeidsforskningsinstituttet (AFI). Hensikten med prosjektet, som er finansiert av Velferdsprogrammet i Norges forskningsråd, er å studere hvordan teknologi og offentlig politikk under ulike bransjemessige forhold påvirker arbeidsgiveres valg og funksjonshemmedes muligheter for deltakelse i arbeidsmarkedet. (Utgitt som Fafo-notat 2007:04, og AFI-notat 2/2007)

Den norske bostøtten

The aim of the Norwegian Housing Allowance is to enable low-income households to increase, or maintain, their housing consumption. The Housing Allowance is based on a “gap” notion; for households entitled, the allowance is determined as a certain percentage of their housing expenses in excess of what is considered as reasonable. Reasonable housing expenses increases with the household income, and there is an upper limit to eligible expenses, depending on size of family. Implicitly, this determines income limits for households that may receive the benefit. The Housing Allowance was reformed in 2009. While it preciously was reserved for families with children, old age and disability pensioners, and certain long term recipients of social welfare, now all types of low-income households may be entitled. Additionally, there previously were also certain conditions on the size and type and ownership of dwelling, now most dwellings are accepted. As part of the reform, the assessment of reasonable housing expenses and upper limits were revised, with the particular aim to make more families with many children eligible. In this Research Report we present an evaluation the reform after one year’s experience with the new legislation. We discuss whether the reform has reached its housing policy aims and study the distributive effect of the reform. We have analyzed administrative register data, from The Norwegian National Housing bank, comparing the composition of recipients before and after the reform. We have also conducted a qualitative survey, interviewing administrators and politicians in a selection of municipalities. Administrative registers show that 124.142 households were recipients of the Housing Allowance in May 2009, an increase by 15.1 per cent from May 2009. We conducted simulations on register data, combining data from 2010 with the pre-reform legislation, and found that 24 000 of the recipients in 2010 would not have been entitled to the allowance the previous year. A majority of these households were categorized as other households, and many of them were tenants in privately owned dwellings. Our interpretation is that the reform actually has helped many the households it was aimed at, for example men 25 to 50 years, non-pensioners without children, and with low labour marked involvement. Contrary to the aims of the reform, however, we find only a small rise in the number of families with many children. The maximum income limits for eligibility are still somewhat below the poverty lines, so we cannot expect the Housing Allowance to close the poverty gap. The allowance redistributes income to household with very low income. Our calculations show that the allowance reduced the poverty gap with 16.1 per cent before the reform, and 16.9 per cent after the reform. Informants from all municipalities were we did our interviews reported that expenses on social assistance had been reduced. The Housing Allowance replaced social assistance for many recipients who had earlier not been entitled to housing allowances. Many municipalities offer rental housing to low income groups, preferably on a temporary basis. An increase in housing allowance from central government helps the tenants pay their rent, thus decreases the economic risk for local government. This should in theory increase the supply of municipal housing, but none of our interviewees reported plans for increased municipal housing. There are incentives for the tenants to stay in municipal housing, as the housing allowance is somewhat higher there than in other tenures of housing. Before the reform, municipal tenants could lose the allowance if they rented a privately owned dwelling, now all housing is treated equally. We find that in 2009 the turn-over among tenants in municipal housing was 1.25 per cent, and it fell to 0.9 per cent in 2010. How can the Housing Allowance scheme be improver further? We conclude that the allowance has no great flaws, is a good measure to help low income groups to decent housing, but that it can be improved by expanding its costs. To strengthen low income households’ situation and reduce poverty, the allowance should be increased and still more families should be entitled to it

Den norske bostøtten

The aim of the Norwegian Housing Allowance is to enable low-income households to increase, or maintain, their housing consumption. The Housing Allowance is based on a “gap” notion; for households entitled, the allowance is determined as a certain percentage of their housing expenses in excess of what is considered as reasonable. Reasonable housing expenses increases with the household income, and there is an upper limit to eligible expenses, depending on size of family. Implicitly, this determines income limits for households that may receive the benefit. The Housing Allowance was reformed in 2009. While it preciously was reserved for families with children, old age and disability pensioners, and certain long term recipients of social welfare, now all types of low-income households may be entitled. Additionally, there previously were also certain conditions on the size and type and ownership of dwelling, now most dwellings are accepted. As part of the reform, the assessment of reasonable housing expenses and upper limits were revised, with the particular aim to make more families with many children eligible. In this Research Report we present an evaluation the reform after one year’s experience with the new legislation. We discuss whether the reform has reached its housing policy aims and study the distributive effect of the reform. We have analyzed administrative register data, from The Norwegian National Housing bank, comparing the composition of recipients before and after the reform. We have also conducted a qualitative survey, interviewing administrators and politicians in a selection of municipalities. Administrative registers show that 124.142 households were recipients of the Housing Allowance in May 2009, an increase by 15.1 per cent from May 2009. We conducted simulations on register data, combining data from 2010 with the pre-reform legislation, and found that 24 000 of the recipients in 2010 would not have been entitled to the allowance the previous year. A majority of these households were categorized as other households, and many of them were tenants in privately owned dwellings. Our interpretation is that the reform actually has helped many the households it was aimed at, for example men 25 to 50 years, non-pensioners without children, and with low labour marked involvement. Contrary to the aims of the reform, however, we find only a small rise in the number of families with many children. The maximum income limits for eligibility are still somewhat below the poverty lines, so we cannot expect the Housing Allowance to close the poverty gap. The allowance redistributes income to household with very low income. Our calculations show that the allowance reduced the poverty gap with 16.1 per cent before the reform, and 16.9 per cent after the reform. Informants from all municipalities were we did our interviews reported that expenses on social assistance had been reduced. The Housing Allowance replaced social assistance for many recipients who had earlier not been entitled to housing allowances. Many municipalities offer rental housing to low income groups, preferably on a temporary basis. An increase in housing allowance from central government helps the tenants pay their rent, thus decreases the economic risk for local government. This should in theory increase the supply of municipal housing, but none of our interviewees reported plans for increased municipal housing. There are incentives for the tenants to stay in municipal housing, as the housing allowance is somewhat higher there than in other tenures of housing. Before the reform, municipal tenants could lose the allowance if they rented a privately owned dwelling, now all housing is treated equally. We find that in 2009 the turn-over among tenants in municipal housing was 1.25 per cent, and it fell to 0.9 per cent in 2010. How can the Housing Allowance scheme be improver further? We conclude that the allowance has no great flaws, is a good measure to help low income groups to decent housing, but that it can be improved by expanding its costs. To strengthen low income households’ situation and reduce poverty, the allowance should be increased and still more families should be entitled to it