Controversial boendelag for asylum seekers is changing

Ebo, the law on private housing, was introduced in 1994, and has been criticized in principle since its.

the Law gives asylum seekers the right to arrange your own accommodation instead of staying at the government reception centers.

the municipalities to the in-migration of asylum seekers increased rapidly - often to residential areas where there were relatives and fellow countrymen.

Soon, local politicians warn of increased segregation, overcrowding and overloaded social services.

– Ebo has given us a receipt that leads to social misery. I have seen with my own eyes children sit in the stairwell to be able to concentrate on their homework. I have seen apartments with lots of mattresses where people sleep in shifts, " says Malmö-governing municipal councils, Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh (S).

Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh. Photo: Anders Hansson

Malmö municipality has in over two decades pushed the requirement that the ebo-law shall be abolished or alternatively be reformed greatly. Now, it seems that you finally have been heard.

the governing parties, C and L, there is a paragraph with the meaning that asylum seekers who settle in some socioeconomically disadvantaged areas from 2020 to get embroiled daily allowance from the Swedish migration board.

Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh, it has been a long battle to bring up the issue of ebo at the national level. The social democrats took a congress decision on abolishing the law as early as 2009, but after that nothing happened.

– In the last legislature, I heard that the government was receptive to the discussion in a larger extent than previously, more people began to understand that it is not reasonable that a few municipalities carry the main responsibility for Sweden's migration policy, " she says.

After the refugee crisis in 2015 did the red-green government on a stricter migration policy, with the ruling coalition parties had agreed. As part of the package set up a public inquiry into Sweden's immigrants come to the country as when it was presented last year, content suggestions on the reforms in the ebo.

except the Left party agreed to limit the conditions for asylum seekers choosing their own housing.

Locally, it has long been a political consensus that the law needs to change.

– Ebo in combination with a very bad integration policies locally in Malmö have done that we suffer from a social exclusion. The consequence is that the welfare system had become underfunded. Extremely big money goes to support grants and hemlöshetsinsatser, " says Torbjörn Tegnhammar, moderate commissioner for the opposition, which now is cautiously positive.

" It's heartening that something is happening although I do see the risks. What happens to a person who becomes the of the with the daily allowance? My fear is that the answer is social support, " he says.

Torbjörn Tegnhammar. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

the 32 municipalities covered by the new rules pushed through with the Januariavtalet. It is the municipalities, which the government previously identied and which all have residential neighborhoods that are deemed to be socially vulnerable.

Malmo is one of the affected municipalities. Here are currently around 1,800 asylum seekers enrolled in the Migration system who lives in the ebo.

a frustration that this is slow and society is just looking on while the social misery have been allowed to grow. Our input has been to eliminate the ebo and the division of responsibility between the municipalities. This is a welcome beginning, " says Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh.

Terje Johansson, the outgoing managing director of the Malmö municipal housing company MKB, also look positively on the forthcoming reform.

– It is very easy to feel sympathy with the idea that everyone should get to live where you wish, but the effects have been completely unreasonable for our neighbourhoods and all who live there. According to me, is ebo is the single biggest reason that segregation has increased and that the society drifted apart. Therefore, we hope and believe that this change will have a big effect, " he says.

When the ebo-law is passed in the speech is usually Terje Johansson pull a shocking example.

" Last spring, we discovered that 45 people were written in a 65-square foot second. It is, of course, far too many. Obvious rips it on our property, but it also means that people in distress, and it is far much more serious, " he says and continues:

If you can't read the lesson at home, or not even be at home without being forced to be out large parts of the day so, it generates a sense of insecurity in itself, for individuals but also for society at large.

Erica Righard, a researcher in migration and social work at Malmö university does not believe that the new reform will give the effect that the politicians desire.

– When the ebo-law came in 1994, it received both a per diem and a boendeersättning. Boendeersättningen were abolished in 2005. The argument then, as now, was to get people to stay on the anläggningsboendena. But the proportion of ebo-residents continued to increase anyway. With that experience, there is nothing that speaks for the ebo will just reduce for cancelling the compensation, " she says.

the effects have so far been limited – according to Erica Righard, not least because the substance is difficult to measure quantitatively.

– Registerdatan is true is often not, instead, they must work qualitatively. We often hear very confident comments on these issues, but when the politician says that ebo leads to segregation, one must actually take it with a pinch of salt, for the knowledge is very small.

Erica Righard believe that one important reason that so many asylum seekers choose ebo – ”despite the low remuneration and the sometimes very poor conditions as these constitute” – is that the government accommodation be perceived as even worse.

" If you are going to force people to stay in anläggningsboenden, it is reasonable that these are not indecent. However, there is not much that speaks to the state will be able to live up to it, at least not when we look at this in a historical perspective, " she says.

Read more: ”Harder to become part of the society if the ebo is lost”