Families lacking adequate housing are increasingly becoming a concern for social services throughout Sweden, challenging a key promise of the social democratic universalist welfare-state. This raises questions about experiences of parenthood under the threat of facing homelessness or while living in temporary and inadequate residence in the Swedish context. A qualitative, explorative interview study among parents without access to the housing market and housed by social services is proposed for this investigation. Interview-analysis using an inductive thematic framework-based model with content-analysis and interpretation suggests that the sample groups perceptions of reality revolves around four main interconnected themes or categories; housing history, mental processes, child-parent relationship, adaptation. These categories each accommodates subthemes such as process, exclusion, depression, repetitive thinking, closeness. Participants housing history is viewed as a process encompassing experiences of inadequacy and their mental processes seems to be dominated by different dimensions and levels of stress, depression and cognitive malfunctioning associated with future plans and living space. The study indicates that these experiences forge a strong and close parent-child relationship and seems to affect participants’ way of viewing their position in society. Observing the results through a theoretical lens concludes that concepts drawn from systems theory, social constructivist ideas such as social representation and positioning theory widens our understanding of how participants situation. Results are also in line with previous qualitative as well as quantitative studies, and can be used to construct concepts and hypothesises regarding identity, class, exclusion and family relations that needs to be tested in further research. Finally, results suggest a careful approach within a social work context towards families living under studied living conditions. It seems pivotal to be aware of how unstable housing can affect mental processes, self-identity and family relationships but keeping in mind that these individual factors are linked to societal structures that lie at the core of homeless or at risk homeless parents’ situation.