Norway making homelessness history

COMMUNITY

Strolling around Norway’s capital Oslo, there’s something that’s notably absent from its streets and parks. When compared to almost every other city in the world, there are barely any people living and sleeping rough. Why? Because Norway, a country of 5.6 million people, is making homelessness history.

“Zero homelessness is our main common goal,” says Hermund Urstad, senior adviser at Husbanken, the government agency charged with managing Norway’s housing policy. “We believe nobody should be homeless. Everyone has the right to a home.”

Since 2006, Norway has nearly halved the number of homeless people thanks to both sustained political backing and long-term, housing-led initiatives.

In 1996, 6,200 people were listed as homeless in Norway, about 1.5 people per 1,000 residents. By 2020, the rate had dropped to just 0.62 people per 1,000, even as the population grew. By comparison, in the US, the rate was 2.3 people per 1,000 residents in 2024 — nearly four times Norway’s rate. In Australia, it’s 4.5 per 1,000, but Australia’s definition of homelessness is quite broad, so comparisons may not be entirely useful.

Yale Global Online estimates about two percent of the world’s population is homeless; the UN has estimated that 100 million people were homeless worldwide in 2005, the last time a global survey was carried out.

Norway defines a homeless person as someone who doesn’t own or rent a home; lives in makeshift or temporary housing; stays temporarily with relatives, friends or acquaintances; lives in a correctional service and is due for release within two months; or does not have accommodation for the coming night. Some countries define homeless people as simply those who are sleeping on the streets.

So what is Norway doing right that other countries could learn from? 

Norway’s efforts began with a focus on data. It needed to know — and publicise — the scale and scope of the problem before solving it. “Before we got the numbers, people didn’t consider homelessness a big problem in Norway,” says Urstad. “You have to make the invisible visible with numbers.”

Since 1996, seven national homelessness surveys have been conducted, roughly every four years, and supplemented by research to deepen knowledge about people experiencing homelessness. While profiles do change over time, typically a homeless person in Norway is a single man in his 30s, born in Norway, likely with a substance abuse problem. 

After the first survey, the government learned that the overall state of services and provisions for homeless people was poor. It launched a series of programs to prevent and reduce homelessness, with a goal of reducing evictions by 30 percent. It helped local authorities draw up action plans for housing and support services. Through the 2000s, it developed a national strategy of action plans, targets and reporting that all municipalities could use — while still allowing for significant local adaptations, since Norway has 356 different municipalities, all with differing contexts. “In the big cities like Oslo and Bergen, there are more mental illness and drug abuse problems,” explains Urstad. “But on the coasts it’s very different.” In rural areas, says Urstad, homeless people tend to be younger, there are fewer immigrants and there is also better access to housing.

While the state sets laws and regulations as well as distributing loans and grants, welfare non-profits work directly with homeless people on the ground, and municipalities help disadvantaged groups get homes and are responsible for finding temporary accommodation for the homeless. 

This “sustained, coordinated and integrated strategy” has been key to the success, according to Urstad. “We often hear about silos between different services,” he adds. “But we managed to connect people.”

Independent experts also point to the importance of housing-led approaches, sometimes known as “Housing First” policy, which prioritise providing permanent housing to homeless people ahead of less critical needs.

Juha Kaakinen, a Finnish expert in housing and homelessness policy, notes that examples such as Norway and Finland, which has had similar success thanks to housing-led policies, underline how important the supply of housing stock is. 

“It can only be solved by providing permanent housing,” says Kaakinen. “Providing affordable housing for people with low incomes and for those with special needs, it’s the best way to prevent homelessness.”

Norway has some clear advantages as well, such as its comprehensive social welfare system, which gives it the second-highest standard of living in the world. Yet, Norway has faced its share of challenges when trying to house everyone, particularly after receiving a significant number of refugees from Ukraine; some 32,935 Ukrainians arrived in 2023 alone, according to Statistics Norway. Urstad says homelessness has likely increased since 2020, due to the war in Ukraine but also due to an increase in building costs, which he adds have risen by nearly a third.

Politics needn’t get in the way of long-term policy either. In the case of Finland, what sets it apart is its bipartisan approach to the problem. Kaakinen says since 2008, there have been nine different coalition governments in Finland, but all have agreed to work towards ending homelessness. “It goes back to the basic values of a society,” he says. “We know from the experience we have had what works and how to achieve a significant reduction in homelessness. We just need to agree to work together.”

It goes back to the basic values of a society. We know from the experience we have had what works and how to achieve a significant reduction in homelessness. We just need to agree to work together.

Juha Kaakinen

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