Alert on misery on housing for homeless people: "Like a garbage dump"

SVT visited the accommodation without the knowledge of those responsible. In the clip above you can see what the reporter met on the spot.

Höglunda is located in the small village of Gräfsnäs outside Sollebrunn in Alingsås municipality. The village consists largely of idyllic villas, right on Lake Anten. But along the Antenvägen there is a small cluster of properties that have long differed from the rest of the surroundings.

This is where the social service in Alingsås places socially vulnerable people without a roof over their heads.

One of the people placed at Höglunda is Ulf Laurin. After a life crisis, Ulf found himself in a situation where he lacked a place to live. But when the social service drove him to Höglunda he got a shock.

- I didn't think it was true. Everything was unearthed. It looked like a dump just said. I asked: Do people really live here? Yes, they said, shrugging their shoulders, says Ulf, who previously also talked to Alingsås Tidning.

Ulf's brother Seth Sjöblom sits down in the interview, and says that he too was disturbed when he saw the condition of the accommodation, outside and inside. 

- It was awful. I wouldn't even let my dogs live there, he says.

Ulf, who previously sat in Alingsås municipal council for the Sweden Democrats, says that he felt physically and mentally ill about having to live at Höglunda.

Ulf suffers from diabetes and was once picked up by an ambulance at the accommodation. One of the staff was so upset by the condition of the accommodation that he called in a report of concern to the municipality.

"XX says it is such a misery that he has never seen anything like it, despite his 17 years at the ambulance," the report states.

Other persons with whom SVT has been in contact and who have either lived at the accommodation, or been inside for other reasons, confirm the picture. The term used throughout is "misery".

The municipality has on two occasions last year had to put out a water tank as there was no running water for the residents. According to the owner of the accommodation, there should only be a break in the water supply for some day, and only on one occasion. But the municipality says that the water tanks have been there for much longer, more than a week at a time.

When SVT visits the site without the knowledge of those responsible, the area is messy, with excavated ditches along the road, open wells, rusted, abandoned cars and a burnt out tractor.

Of a resident, we are let into the basement where the roof is leaking and there is dirt and debris everywhere.

However, when we return a few weeks later, for a booked interview, the place has been cleaned up. Much of the garbage has been removed during an emergency cleaning both inside and outside prior to the interview. This is confirmed by the property's site manager, Holger Andersson.

"It might not be so good," he admits.

Consult the site manager about the cleaning maneuver prior to SVT's visit.

Höglunda has previously been a refugee residence. That operation was discontinued in 2017, and even during that time the accommodation attracted notifications and complaints.

Among other things, it was discovered that the accommodation lacked hot water, that the fire alarms did not work and that the cleaning was inadequate. During an unannounced inspection of the municipality's environmental protection office, the deficiencies were found to be extensive, and the board also wrote a letter to the Migration Board to alert them to the deficiencies in the accommodation.

Despite the municipality's previous criticism, in the summer of 2019, Alingsås began to buy housing at Höglunda for those who were for some reason acutely homeless.

Holger Andersson says that one is surprised by the recent criticism and that it has always been clean and tidy in the parts of the houses where the social service has placed people. There should be no mold and there has always been both heat and running water, except for a shorter period.

SVT has also been in contact with the owner of the accommodation who says that he does not recognize the criticism and that the condition of the accommodation has always been good, even though it has been messy outside.

A few weeks after the interview with the site manager, Holger Andersson sends a protocol from a surveyor, who has checked the accommodation at the company's request, and found no deviations in the indoor environment.

At the time of writing, Alingsås Municipality has three people located at Höglunda. They say that they have visited the accommodation on several occasions, and rated it as reasonable.

- It has been excavated outside and there have been problems with the water. But otherwise it has looked perfectly ok, says Tanja Mattsson, head of department at the social services in Alingsås municipality.

Hear Tanja Mattsson explain why she thinks the accommodation is reasonable.