Several cases of social dumping in Kalix: "It's very bad"

Social dumping is usually described as a way rich growth municipalities around big cities use to get people in need of large efforts from the community to move from their own municipality and settle in another part of the country and often then in sparsely populated areas where housing is cheap.

Kalix is ​​one of the municipalities in Norrbotten that has experience with the problem.

- We know that in 2019 we had four cases where people came to Kalix in the context of social dumping, says Kalix Municipality's social director, Anna-Lena Andersson.

Katarina Burman (V), chair of the Social Committee in Kalix, says this usually affects smaller municipalities with weak finances.

- It is about people who are in great need of social welfare and care. You put that cost on smaller municipalities that already have big problems with their finances. It's very bad.

Other Norrbotten municipalities also have experience with the problem. This shows a roundabout that SVT Norrbotten has done. More than half of the nine municipalities that were called up answered that they had experience of social dumping from other municipalities at some point during the past five years.

In most cases, rich municipalities around major cities in southern and central Sweden are designated as those who engage in social dumping. But in a couple of cases, the surveyed municipalities believe that there are also cases from other Norrbotten municipalities, including Luleå.

However, the chairman of the Social Committee in Luleå rejects the criticism.

- Luleå municipality does not practice social dumping. We do not direct anyone to move to another municipality. However, it happens that people themselves want to move to a certain municipality. If they have then acquired their own accommodation there, we will pay the rent for the first month, says Bodel Wennerbrandt Sevastik (S), chairman of the Social Committee in Luleå.