Public space is an essential component of the daily life of homeless people, whether rough sleepers or hostel dwellers or others who are inadequately housed. During 2006 a group of researchers from the European Observatory on Homelessness considered the ways in which the increasing surveillance, regulation and control over public space, evident in all European cities, has impacted on the lives of homeless people. In this paper we chart the background to this latest phase in the 'regulation of urban space' and assemble evidence from across Europe and especially from our case study countries – Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, and Sweden. We attempt an analysis of these trends using concepts of 'border control', 'discipline' and 'deterrence'. We also consider a limited number of examples of resistance by and on behalf of homeless people to the imposition of restrictions on public space access. In the concluding section, we reflect on related wider societal processes associated with urban regulation and surveillance and their impact on the use of public space.

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While it is generally agreed that the state has'rolled back'from direct intervention in housing policy in many European countries, this paper attempts to demonstrate that in Sweden the central state still exerts power over issues such as homelessness, though the way it exercises that power has taken new forms. Government by'discourse','projects'and'non-decision'has largely replaced more traditional forms of intervention by means of'legislation','regularization'and'subventions'. The paper focuses on the central state's approach to initiatives against homelessness, with special regard to its stance in the power relationship between those who control housing and those who lack it. Starting from a general understanding that homelessness is not a necessary feature of a modern nation, and that it would be possible for the central state to do away with it, my aim is to identify and discuss structures and processes that hinder its abolition.Homelessness, policy, housing allocation, non-decision, project funding, political translation, Swedish state,

What does the persistent construction of ‘the homeless’ and the revitalised term ‘our homeless’ include, imply, and exclude in Swedish political debate? And how is it politically and morally related to other houseless groups in the country? These questions are approached through an analysis of minutes from the Swedish Parliament 2015–2019. Inspired by Simmel’s (1908/1965) definition of ‘the poor’ as those who get (or would get) public assistance as poor, I claim that in Swedish political discourse, ‘(our) homeless’ comprise only those to whom the society acknowledges a responsibility to give shelter, thereby excluding the tens of thousands of people without homes that are temporarily accommodated by other authorities, private providers or individuals—or not at all. Although official definitions are housing-related, migrants without homes tend to be defined outside the ‘homeless’ concept, as well as from the municipalities’ responsibilities. I will argue that the reasons for this are institutional: regulations and their interpretation, coupled with traditions to care for only ‘our’ people which, in turn, are fortified by current nationalist sentiments.

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