Almost 40.000 Greeks became homeless the past 8 years due to the economic crisis. But there is still hope! This project reflects on how architecture can lead to a more humane society using democratic methods and a city’s urban strengths. It explores how volunteers, the State and the Private Sector can collaborate through competitions and win-win agreements in order to gradually transform an abandoned commercial center and landmark, MINION, into a qualitative pilot housing project with socialization space for hundreds of homeless people. This could finally lead to the revitalization of the decaying Athenian environment through a number of stages. The project has a dual purpose and the idea is very simple. On one hand the project needs to include stores and other commercial spaces that reflect the old Athenian character in order to attract the interest of the higher financial layers of Greece and invest their capital. On the other hand the State will use this capital in order to provide qualitative housing to people in need. MINION is actually turns from a ‘commercial machine’ that used to be, into a ‘social machine’. All these actions will be completed with the collaboration of the tenants of the building. / Nästan 40 000 greker har blivit hemlösa de senaste 8 åren på grund av den ekonomiska krisen. Men det finns fortfarande hopp! Detta projekt reflekterar över hur arkitektur kan leda till ett mänskligare samhälle med hjälp av demokratiska metoder och en stads urbana styrkor. Det utforskar hur volontärer, staten och den privata sektorn kan samarbeta genom tävlingar och win-win avtal genom att gradvis omvandla ett övergivet kommersiellt centrum och landmärke, MINION, till ett kvalitativt pilotbostadsprojekt med socialiseringsplats för hundratals hemlösa. Detta skulle slutligen leda till en vitalisering av den förfallande atenska miljön genom ett antal steg. Projektet har ett dubbelt syfte och tanken är mycket enkel. Å ena sidan måste projektet omfatta butiker och andra kommersiella utrymmen som återspeglar den gamla atenska karaktären för att locka de högre ekonomiska lagren i Grekland att investera sitt kapital. Å andra sidan kommer staten att använda detta kapital för att ge kvalitativa bostäder till människor i nöd. MINION förändras från en ’kommersiell maskin’ till en ’social maskin’. Alla dessa åtgärder kommer att utföras i samarbete med alla bostadsprojektets invånare.

Syftet med denna uppsats var att undersöka hur socialarbetare från kommunala och ideella verksamheter upplever arbetet med hemlösa och hur deras arbete kan påverka de hemlösas möjligheter till stöd och eget boende. För att undersöka och svara på syftet etablerades två frågeställningar. Våra frågeställningar berörde kontakten och samverkan mellan stödverksamheterna samt deras kontakt till de hemlösa. Undersökningen är utformad med en kvalitativ ansats där sju stycken semi-strukturerade intervjuer har genomförts. De deltagande i studien arbetar på olika sätt med hemlöshet och kommer i direkt kontakt med hemlösa individer. Vi tog hjälp av teoretiska utgångspunkter om stigma, makt och samverkan för att kunna analysera vårt resultat. Vårt resultat visade att de hemlösas kontakt till socialarbetare är väsentlig för att kunna ta sig ur hemlösheten. Det framkom även att både de ideella och kommunala verksamheterna är viktiga eftersom deras arbete ser olika ut och därför kan möta hemlösa som befinner sig på olika plan i sin hemlöshet. Samverkan har också visat sig vara betydlig eftersom den möjliggör att de hemlösa som väljer att endast vistas på de ideella verksamheterna fångas upp genom ett samarbete mellan de kommunala och ideella verksamheterna. / The aim with this study was to explore how social workers from communal and non-profit organizations experience the work with homeless people and how their work can affect the homeless people’s opportunities to get support and their own home. To examine and answer the aim we established two questions. These questions referred to the contact and cooperation between the organizations and their relation to the homeless. The study has been designed with a qualitative method where seven semi-structured interviews have been made. The participants in the study are all working with homelessness and meet homeless individuals. To analyze our result we used theories such as stigma, power and cooperation. Our result showed that homeless people’s contact with social workers is essential to be able to get out of homelessness. What also emerged was that both the non-profit and the communal organizations are important since their work looks various which means they can meet homeless people that are on different levels in their homelessness. Cooperation has also been shown to be important since it makes it possible for the homeless that chooses to only visit the non-profit organizations to get help because of collaboration between the communal and non-profit organizations.

<p>The purpose of this paper is to study how people without home experience social services and how they experience their space of action when they meet social services. In order to answer these questions, a qualitative approach has been used. The empirical material consists of five interviews with people who have contact with social services because they are homeless. To support my analysis of the space of action for the persons being interviewed, I’ve used two theoretical perspectives, power analysis by Michel Foucault and Rational Choice. The result shows that the interviewed often feel insulted when they meet social services, that they have little or no involvement and that their space of action is small. According to Michel Foucault, the normalising power of the social services oppresses the clients and the clients in their turn are doing different forms of resistance. According to Rational Choice, interaction between people is based on power, exchange and interest. From the clients point of view the only thing they can exchange to get a place to live is to be submissive. Therefore they don’t have many resources to widen their space of action.</p>

The purpose of this paper is to study how people without home experience social services and how they experience their space of action when they meet social services. In order to answer these questions, a qualitative approach has been used. The empirical material consists of five interviews with people who have contact with social services because they are homeless. To support my analysis of the space of action for the persons being interviewed, I’ve used two theoretical perspectives, power analysis by Michel Foucault and Rational Choice. The result shows that the interviewed often feel insulted when they meet social services, that they have little or no involvement and that their space of action is small. According to Michel Foucault, the normalising power of the social services oppresses the clients and the clients in their turn are doing different forms of resistance. According to Rational Choice, interaction between people is based on power, exchange and interest. From the clients point of view the only thing they can exchange to get a place to live is to be submissive. Therefore they don’t have many resources to widen their space of action.

Homelessness and homeless people is something that is described and explained in different ways over time. Since the 1950s, two discourses about homelessness and its causes has been competing with each other. One discourse hold the meaning that homelessness is caused by housing shortage and the other focus on individual shortcomings that make homeless to unsuitable tenants. In the media, homelessness and homeless often is associated with crime, addiction and mental illness, this reinforce the public perception of homeless people as deviants, which separates the homeless from society even more.   The purpose of this study is to examine whether media representations of homeless and homelessness in an evening paper and a morning paper, has changed in the 2000s, and if these representations are consistent with those found in the reports of homelessness from The National Board of Wealth and Welfare. In order to achieve the purpose of the study and answer our research questions, the authors have used a discourse analytical approach using some key analytical tools from both critical discourse analysis and discourse theory in the analysis of the empirical material. The material consists of articles from two of the largest newspapers in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet, and the reports from The National Board of Wealth and Welfare.   The result of the study shows that in year 2000 the image of homeless as substance abusers and mentally ill middle-aged men who are roughsleepers is dominating in both Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter and in the report from The National Board of Wealth and Welfare. In year 2012 this representation of homeless remains but is no longer the dominant, when new homeless groups are presented in our material. Our results also indicates that homelessness discourse changed in the 2000s from a antisocial discourse to a discourse that focus on right. The study also shows that the discourse on homeless women has not changed in the 2000s.

I have conducted a review on four countries in Scandinavia and the goal was to create a better understanding about what has caused homelessness in this countries. The result shows that the causes of homelessness can be explained by a variety of reasons. The most common causes of homelessness were related to mental illness and drug abuse. There where also other causes of homelessness, which was considered normal in Scandinavia. Examples of other causes were eviction, unemployment, housing policy, housing shortage, payment of debts, separations and family problems.

I denna kandidatuppsats undersöks berättelsers retoriska funktion i tidningen Situation Sthlm. Huvudsyftet är att undersöka om och i sådana fall hur berättelserna i tidningen bidrar till att uppnå tidningens publicistiska målsättning. I det ingår det underordnade syftet att undersöka om och i sådana fall hur berättelserna bidrar till att skapa identifikation hos läsarna. Materialet består av sex stycken berättelser som är tagna ur olika nummer av tidningen och samtliga berättelser handlar om hemlösa människor som själva är försäljare av tidningen. Uppsatsen bygger på teorier om vad en berättelse är, berättelsers retoriska funktion samt teorier om identifikation. Analyserna är gjorda efter Sonja K. Foss modell för narrativ analys om än i något reviderade version då inte alla analyskategorier som finns med i originalmodellen används i uppsatsen. Uppsatsen visar på att samtliga berättelser har potential att skapa identifikation och att bidra till den publicistiska målsättningen i någon mån men de berättelser som har potential att engagera flest läsare är de som är specifika på flera olika nivåer. Detta uppnås dels genom att ge detaljerade beskrivningar av miljöer och dels genom att karaktärerna skildras på ett mångdimensionellt och nyanserat sätt i kombination med att deras handlingar upplevs som motiverade och begripliga. Även användandet av topiker är centralt för att uppnå det retoriska syftet. Genom att vissa av berättelserna erbjuder läsarna flera olika topiker (mentala mötesplatser) minskar risken att vissa läsargrupper exkluderas. / This Bachelor thesis investigates the rhetorical function of stories published in the Stockholm based street newspaper, Situation Sthlm. The main purpose of the study is to investigate if, and in such a case how, the stories aid in obtaining the goals set by the newspaper with regards to their publishing criteria. A subordinate purpose to that is to investigate if, and in such a case how, the stories aid in creating a sense of identification for the readers. The materials used, include six stories retrieved from several different issues of Situation Sthlm, and in common each story depicts a homeless person who works as a vendor for the street newspaper. The thesis utilizes several different theories aimed at describing the concept of stories, the rhetorical function of stories as well as theories regarding the concept of identification. The model for narrative analysis established by Sonja K. Foss, has been applied for the analyses performed in this study, the model has however been slightly reduced due to the exclusion of certain categories that are included in the original model. It is concluded in this thesis that the six stories analyzed all have the potential of creating a sense of identification for the reader and that they, to an extent, contribute to the newspaper’s publishing criteria. Nevertheless, the stories that have the potential of capturing the largest amount of readers are those that include several different levels of specificity. This is partially achieved through highly detailed descriptions of the milieus in which the story takes place and partially through highly nuanced and multi-dimensional character portrayals in combination with creating an essence of the character’s actions as being well motivated and comprehendible. The usage of topos is also crucial in order to achieve the rhetorical aims in the stories analyzed. By offering an array of topos (fictional meeting places), which was the case for some of the stories, there is a reduced risk of excluding certain categories of readers.

The aim of this study was to use stories from three people who previously lived in homelessness to increase the knowledge of the social network's impact on the process of exiting homelessness. In order to answer our questions, whether the social network facilitated or hindered the way out of homelessness, we have used a narrative method to take advantage of these person's life stories. As a theoretical perspective, we used the ecology of human development, based on the idea that human development occurs in interaction with their environment at different levels. Results showed those interviewees' networks had a significant impact on their path out of homelessness and that these relationships both facilitated and hindered this process. At the same time, these relationships affected our interviewees in different ways and were found in various areas of life, which indicates that there is more than one way out of homelessness. However, common patterns emerged in these stories that said that the relationships facilitated consisted of those who have supported and encouraged our interviewees in their way out of homelessness. While hindering relations consisted of those who disbelieved in the interviewees abilities and not supported when needed most.