Housing exclusion is an increasing problem in Europe. The extreme effect of housing exclusion is the growing population of homeless people in most of the EU countries (FEANTSA and the Fondation Abbé Pierre, 2018). 1 Only Norway and Finland stand out with a reduction in homelessness numbers. In previous years, Finland has been the only country where there has been a reduction in the homeless population. But now, Norway has seen an impressive reduction of homeless people between 2012 and 2016, where the number recorded dropped by 36 per cent (Dyb and Lid, 2017).

Punitive measures–in order to control and regulate the urban space–have a long history, and we have recently seen a resurgence of regulations and restriction on begging and sleeping in public places (Cassiers and Kesteloot, 2012; O’Sullivan, 2012). Another alarming trend in Europe is that the profile of people experiencing homelessness has changed. We can now see a growing number of people experiencing homelessness that are children, or children growing up with lone mothers, or young people that cannot get housing on the ordinary housing market and an increasing number of families with a migration background. The Swedish homelessness figures that were published at the end of 2017 confirm this picture. This article will present some of the trends that are evident in a Swedish context. The analysis will also show some of the challenges Sweden is facing with a growing exclusion of the poor and social-spatial inequalities.