EU citizens begging and sleeping rough in Swedish Urban Areas: social work perspectives on problems and target groups

ABSTRACT

EU citizens from Central and Eastern Europe travelling to cities in other countries to make a better living have become an issue of major political concern across Europe. This study explores how professionals from Swedish municipal social service organizations in urban areas construct the phenomenon of poor visiting EU citizens. The impact of social constructions on the practice and design of policies makes it important to analyse how target groups, such as poor visiting EU citizens, are characterized and what normative assumptions are made about them. The study is theoretically based on Schneider and Ingram’s work on ‘Social Constructions of Target Populations’. Interviews with social workers in the three largest cities in Sweden were conducted. The results suggest a clear ambivalence among interviewees regarding how to conceptualize EU citizens. They were careful not to highlight any subgroups, instead defining the group as consisting of different individuals with varying needs. While the interviewees constructed members of the target group in a way similar to what Schneider and Ingram describe as dependents, they also attributed them with some agency. We conclude that this may be a reflection of the political and organizational setting in which social work with poor visiting EU citizens is conducted in Sweden.

KEYWORDS:

• Social construction
• EU citizens
• social work professionals
• migrants

EU citizens from Central and Eastern Europe travelling to cities in other countries to make a better living have become an issue of major political concern across Europe. One group that has received specific attention are people from Romania and Bulgaria who gather in urban city centres, sleep alongside the walls of buildings or in encampments, ask passers-by for money, collect bottles and do informal ‘street work’ (for example, Djuve, Friberg, Tyldom and Zhang 2015). This has made the situation of people living in extremely marginalized situations visible in a new way in the host countries.

The Swedish welfare state is governed by the principle of universalism and aims to provide decent living conditions for all citizens (Lundberg and Åmark 2010). This makes visible signs of poverty appear anomalous, related to a period of time before the mid 1900s (SOU 2016). Local public authorities play a central role as funders, administrators and producers of social services provided by Swedish local authorities. Professional social workers are directly involved with poor visiting EU citizens, and meet them in their precarious situations, assess their needs and serve as a link to local politicians who decide over appropriate measures. However, Swedish authorities appear to have been unprepared to deal with this new, but at the same time age-old, social problem (SOU 2016, 13).

The arrival of visible poverty on Swedish streets has fuelled discussions among different actors, such as citizens, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), local politicians, municipal social services and government agencies on how the situation of poor visiting EU citizens should be understood. There is a lack of consensus which may be related to the complexity of the phenomenon; it is also seemingly linked to other social issues, including homelessness and the living conditions of the Roma people in general.

This paper scrutinizes how professional social workers in Sweden construct the phenomenon of poor visiting EU citizens. Since these professionals have first-hand knowledge about the group, and since they have the possibility to influence social policy and service provision, it is, in our opinion, important to scrutinize their perspectives. The phenomenon of poor visiting EU citizens is still a rather new research area, and its relation to social work has so far not received a great deal of attention. Against the backdrop of this knowledge gap, we conducted interviews with a sample of representatives from municipal social services and NGOs who come into contact with poor visiting EU citizens in the three largest Swedish cities: Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö. We explore how these social workers define the characteristics, preconditions and situation of the target group. A key point of interest is how problem definitions can be understood as related to the socio-political and organizational context in which they appear.

Poor visiting EU citizens in Sweden

Any person who holds the nationality of an EU country is automatically also an EU citizen and has the right to move freely around the European Union and settle anywhere within its territory for a period of up to three months without any conditions. The so-called free movement of persons is a key political element of the package of rights linked to the status of EU citizenship and is regulated by the so-called Free Movement Directive (2004/38/EC) (Carrera 2005). The right to reside longer than three months, however, is subject to certain conditions. Economically inactive persons (for example, the unemployed) need a comprehensive sickness insurance cover and sufficient resources for themselves and their family so as not to become a burden on the host country’s social welfare system during their stay.

Although directives are binding, they provide EU Member States with a certain leeway regarding their implementation. Implementation can therefore vary between but also within countries; Member States have, for example, the right to expel an EU citizen if his/her behaviour entails a substantial threat to fundamental social interests. The Scandinavian countries have taken very different policy positions in relation to migrant street workers. Denmark has adopted the most rigorous approach in order to reduce the influx of poor migrants, strengthening the national ban that criminalizes begging (Djuve et al. 2015). Thus, an EU citizen’s access to social benefits or low-threshold services in a specific Member State depends on the interpretation of when a citizen poses a substantial threat to society. The unclear juridical situation and the existence of conflicting regulations and interests (as expressed in social services acts, public health acts, efforts to maintain social order, the protection of private property, etc.) give local politicians and professionals considerable leeway to comply with or disobey policy decisions at higher levels.

Municipal social services in Sweden have long held a position that is unique by international standards. Swedish social workers enjoy a relatively high status, based on their university education and the assumed importance of municipal social services for upholding the welfare state (Meeuwisse and Swärd 2007). Social work is performed within the framework of a Scandinavian administrative system with case management and the application of the law. This implies that professional social workers have dual roles, helping and controlling at the same time. Social workers also have a great deal of freedom when deciding individual cases; as the Social Service Act (Socialtjänstlag 2001:453) specifies that the social services should consider ‘people’s responsibility for their social situation as well as that of others’ and that it should be ‘based on respect for people’s self-determination and integrity’. Despite the dominant role of the public social services, the issue of homelessness has historically been a task carried out by non-profit organizations. These organizations often work in close collaboration with municipal social services (Olsson and Nordfeldt 2008).

Social constructions of target groups

The phenomenon of EU citizens moving to other EU countries to gain a better standard of living touches upon several research traditions. Some studies focus on the mobility of EU citizens and place the issue within overall migration patterns (for example, Castles and Miller 2009; Acton 2010), while others pay attention to anti-discrimination and minority rights, or the gap between human rights and national social rights. In this research, certain groups have been of specific interest, such as migrants from Central and Eastern Europe (Favell 2008), Roma people (Guglielmo and Waters 2005; Anghel 2008), undocumented migrants (Björngren Cuadra 2012) and irregular migrants (Jandl 2007; Baldaccini 2009).

Many studies highlight the dilemma of categorization or framing (Strömblad and Myrberg 2015). A general theme is how the definition of a certain group (for example, Roma, EU citizens) shapes politics at national and local levels (Nacu 2011; Holgersson 2011; Sigvardsdotter 2012; Castaneda 2014). In an effort to gain an understanding of the multifaceted realities of migration, mobility patterns and national frameworks, Castaneda (2014) discusses the Roma people moving from Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans to Germany. Different housing and living conditions resulted in different problem definitions and diverse policy responses. In particular, inconsistencies inherent in these definitions were stressed. Roma people, for instance, were defined as irregular migrants, nomads or homeless when they in fact lived in apartments paying rent. They were subject to expulsion as EU citizens or viewed as illegitimate refugees fleeing from desperate circumstances but without experiencing a sufficient amount of political oppression. Castaneda concludes that problem definitions contribute to the curtailing of population movements that national states deem unwanted.

Further, categorizations function as positions where conflicts between the mobility of migrants, government control and support measures are negotiated (Sager, Holgersson, and Öberg 2016). Perhaps the most extreme case is when groups of migrants are not recognized as a category but are made invisible (Sigvardsdotter 2012, 149). Some studies focus on social work with migrants and stress the role of national contexts and policies (Mostowska 2014; Jönsson 2014; Björngren Cuadra 2015). Addressing the situation of undocumented immigrants in the context of Swedish social work, Jönsson (2014) distinguishes between a victim discourse that refers mainly to undocumented women and children who deserve some kind of help from ‘us’, while ‘a discourse of illegality’ is mainly used with reference to undocumented men who are perceived as being responsible for their ‘illegality’ and difficult position in Sweden and that of their families (Jönsson 2014, 42). Moreover, Mostowska (2014) studied how social workers in Dublin and Copenhagen ‘made sense’ of Polish EU migrants. In Copenhagen, the dominant ‘migrant worker’ frame embraced official policy, and shifted the responsibility on to the migrants, but was often supplemented by the ‘exceptional humanitarianism’ frame that allowed staff to express professional values. In Dublin, the ‘undisciplined deviant’ frame was the most common.

In a cross-national systematic literature review, Cox and Geisen (2014) concluded that there are many relevant migration studies in social and political sciences but only a few studies on migration and local social work practices. The perspectives of local social workers are thus rather unexplored in the Swedish and European literature.

The processes of problem definition

It is often argued that ways of socially constructing target groups may influence political agendas and the design of policies. One of the leading theories for understanding the development and implications of policymaking is the theory of social construction and policy design (Schneider and Ingram 1993). The concept of a target group refers to the recognition of shared characteristics, specific values, symbols, and images that distinguish one target group from other groups (Schneider and Ingram 1993, 335).

Schneider and Ingram (1993) classify a given target group along the two dimensions of social construction and power. According to the first one, individuals are perceived as being on a gradient of undeserving to deserving whereas in the second dimension, individuals are perceived as being on a gradient from powerful to a lack of power. This makes four groups: the advantaged, the contenders, the dependents and the deviants. The advantaged group is constructed in a positive way and has a high degree of power, whereas contenders also have a high degree of power but are constructed negatively. Advantaged target groups are, for example, scientists and businesspeople, whereas examples of contenders include the cultural elite (Schneider and Ingram 1993, 336). These two target groups are less relevant for the present purpose and are not discussed further. Defined as those lacking power we have the dependents and the deviants. While dependents are constructed positively and thus defined as deserving (for example, children), deviants (for example, ‘criminals’, ‘drug addicts’) are characterized as being negatively constructed (undeserving). Under the assumption that social rights are central to the Swedish welfare state, we may in this study expect that the professional social workers’ construction of poor visiting EU citizens will point towards dependents (positively constructed as deserving and lacking power). This is also supported by research showing that Nordic social workers are more likely to support structural rather than individual explanations of poverty (Meuwisse, Scaramuzzino, and Swärd 2011). However, we cannot preclude that members of the target group may also be constructed as deviants. In fact, some social workers seem to link poverty to individual ‘laziness and lack of willpower’ (Meuwisse, Scaramuzzino, and Swärd 2011, p. 17). Social workers may in addition draw upon notions of both deviants and dependents in their constructions.

In the results section, we focus on i) identifying the characteristics of the target group/s, and the values and images that are linked to such characteristics (deserving vs. undeserving), and ii) identifying the social workers’ perceptions of the EU citizens’ situation when it comes to agency. While deviant and dependent target groups are assigned a low degree of power in Schneider and Ingram’s (1993) characterization, we know little about how social workers perceive the agency of poor visiting EU citizens. Following the above-mentioned wording of the Social Services Act, we may expect Swedish social workers to emphasize more individual agency in their constructions of the target group than assumed by Schneider and Ingram (1993). However, how and in what way this is so constitutes an empirical question.

Data and methods

The data consist of 22 interviews with key informants in Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö, amounting to approximately 10–15 pages of transcribed material per interview. Through snowball sampling we recruited individuals holding various positions in politico-administrative offices who coordinated service provision (PAO), as well as in municipal social services (MSS) and non-governmental organizations (NGO) who were frontline staff with direct contact with clients (also including managers). Our sample includes interviews with so-called local ‘EU teams’ doing outreach work (both MSS and NGO), case-managing social workers and heads of social service units who are responsible for procedures and policies directed at EU citizens. We conducted 10 interviews in Göteborg (PAO: 2, MSS: 5, NGO: 3), seven in Stockholm (PAO: 2, MSS: 3, NGO: 2), and five in Malmö (PAO: 1, MSS: 2, NGO: 2). Data were collected during the spring of 2016, either through telephone or face-to-face interviews. We focused on three broad themes related to social work with poor visiting EU citizens in the municipalities: 1) descriptions of the current situation, 2) interpretations of the problem including responsibility issues, and 3) working models and specific challenges. Descriptions and discussions were spurred without us naming specific social work target groups; instead phrases such as ‘poor people on the streets’ or ‘new target groups’ were used. Our ambition was to let the interviewees do the typifications and labelling they saw fit. While the target group at issue here was often vaguely referred to as EU citizens, and was sometimes left unspecified, it should be noted that the vast majority of discussions concerned Roma people.

The analysis began by entering data into the software program Nvivo and grouping broadly different topics into themes of importance for the entire research project, which mapped the interviewees’ claims about problem characteristics, ideological and political considerations, methods, partnerships, community issues, and so forth. A more narrowed down analysis was then carried out on how EU citizens were attributed with meaning as an issue of concern. This resulted in a few new themes that summarized key aspects of how target groups were constructed, such as problem severity, between-group comparisons, and opinions on begging/sleeping rough. Through the constant comparison method (Glaser 1965) we subsequently collapsed codes with similar meaning into two overarching analytical themes that could integrate how interviewees dealt with conflicting perspectives on the phenomenon. They were ‘Desperate measures for desperate times’ and ‘The limits of universalism’. The meaning of these themes was subsequently interpreted from a theoretical perspective, with a focus on how interviewees constructed the group of poor visiting EU citizens in its own right, and in relation to other target groups and social problems. Interview extracts presented in the results section were translated from Swedish into English.

Results

Theme 1: desperate measures for desperate times

When the interviewees were asked to describe the people who beg and sleep rough in urban areas, they somewhat hesitantly mentioned Roma people or people from Romania or Bulgaria, and emphasized that ‘we’ as representatives of a functioning welfare state tend to find it difficult to fully grasp and handle their suffering and distress. This pinpointing of a specific group of people was not based on prejudicial reasoning, labelling Roma people as, for example, criminals, deviants and/or people who take advantage of the system. Instead, Roma people were portrayed as rational actors trying their best to handle marginalization and stigmatization, and that they have always been forced to provide for themselves in other countries than their own. Poor living conditions were seen as resulting from structural oppression in the home countries, and as being accumulated and deteriorating in a downward spiral regardless of where the individuals may temporarily reside. The problems of the group were not considered as either self-inflicted or avoidable. Instead, the main message was that these problem-afflicted persons do what they can to make a living: visiting Sweden instead of staying at home was the lesser of two evils. The theme presented here thus covers descriptions related to both structural and individual preconditions. Below, an executive manager of an NGO highlights that people begging on the streets are desperate:

Most of those who engage in the street economy are here in a desperate hunt for money, to get a better life. Many of them would stay at home if circumstances were better in their home countries. (…) They often suffer from ill health, long-term stress due to the lack of a stable income. They are homeless. (…) Most of them are Roma people, with a poor educational background. In a way they’re accustomed to living outside society and to lacking information about how society works. They hardly know how to establish themselves in their home countries. (Göteborg, NGO)

This line of reasoning emphasizes that begging and sleeping rough are normal responses to structural oppression in home countries. It demystifies the activity and downplays its norm-breaking character. It is, moreover, concluded that the inability to claim rights and fulfil duties stems from a lack of knowledge about Swedish society, and in effect, that such behaviour should not be seen as strange or indicative of bad morals. The Roma people that service providers meet were thus described as somewhat alien elements in the welfare state with their lack of basic skills needed to establish themselves as autonomous citizens. This helps explain both why members of the group do as they do, and why the Swedish welfare state should pay extra attention to their needs. In the next quote, an outreach worker gives an account of how a Roma female living on the street responded to journalists:

When they asked: ‘How come you’re here begging outside the supermarket in the middle of winter?’ She said: ‘It’s simple. In my village, there’s no way for me to support myself. I have three children who need food; I want them to go to school to avoid my fate. This is no good. That much I know. But what can I do? I have three options, become a prostitute, steal or beg. I don’t want to steal; I don’t want to prostitute myself. That’s why I beg.’ And she put it in such a straightforward way. It’s really quite simple. It’s the way the world works. (Stockholm, NGO)

In this quote, the interviewee chose a narrative that presents street begging as a non-criminal activity and preferable to committing a criminal offence, underscoring the judiciousness of the behaviour. This and similar accounts in the data illustrate the view that the root of the misery on the streets lies in societal circumstances that are impossible for any individual to alter. For Roma people there is currently no escape (from it) – not even in a welfare state such as Sweden. According to the interviewees, the lack of education and distance from the labour market destroy the hopes of visitors, and resignation and a ticket back home replace that hope. In the next quote, a social worker concludes that people make conscious decisions to avoid poverty by coming to Sweden, but that such decisions are later regretted and changed when they learn that work and income are impossible to achieve:

The majority of those who come into contact with us are people who want to apply for financial help so that they can return home. At that stage, they’ve been in Göteborg for about three weeks; they had set their hopes on getting a job, or were promised a job. But when they arrived they realized that there are no jobs, they don’t know the language, there’s nothing to do. They think: ‘Ah well, I can always collect and deposit cans. They say you can make money that way.’ But then you realize that that doesn’t work either, and all you want is to go back home. (Göteborg, MSS)

This illustrates that the interviewees tried to normalize the behaviour of Roma people who beg in Sweden, by emphasizing that their ambition is generally to seek and find work, and that other sources of income are perceived as second-grade alternatives that do not suffice in practice. While the quote concerns people who seek assistance from municipal social services to pay for a return ticket home – who hence do not find it worthwhile to stay – the general notion was that begging is a temporary occupation; they seldom aim to establish themselves in the host society. Expressions of this kind show how the interviewees stressed that poor visiting EU citizens are rational actors who do what they can to provide for themselves under current circumstances, but that those circumstances are discouraging and potent enough to make attempts at improving living conditions futile.

When it comes to the preconditions for interacting with and integrating into Swedish society, there was a tendency to differentiate groups within the larger group of mobile EU citizens. There were, for example, instances when the interviewees characterized the Roma people as family-oriented and secluded from society. Moreover, the group was not considered prone to seeking help of its own accord, which made it difficult for the professionals to reach the group and provide services. In the next quote, an executive manager of an NGO describes the supply of interventions that could be applied for, should only the group make claims with the relevant authorities:

Our target group is by and large unable to independently apply for services, which they are entitled to do. Of course, there are no guarantees that their applications will be approved, but they have a right to apply for petrol expenses, return tickets, shelter, family support; many different things. But people from our target group are hardly ever able to contact an authority themselves and get their claims correctly assessed. I’ve hardly ever seen it. (Göteborg, NGO)

As this quote shows, the view is that the needs of poor visiting EU citizens (here referring to Roma people) often remain unsatisfied due to their tendency to accept deprivation, and poorly executed case management. It also stresses that the group is extremely undemanding compared to other target groups. Below, two outreach workers describe how they in their contact attempts with Roma people need to rely on a somewhat different kind of logic than what is relevant for other potential service users, hence emphasizing the desperate nature of the situation:

We have a fairly similar strategy for this target group as we have for our traditional Swedish target groups who settle in the same way but much more chaotically. The idea is that this is the Roma person’s home, and if you approach it in this way, you’ll at least be seen and not rejected. I always say I’m a social work assistant and that I work for the city, but they can’t grasp the concept of our social services or our organizational structure. (Göteborg, MSS)

This quote refers to the encampments that Roma people are often said to reside in during their visits to Sweden. The interviewee normalizes these by concluding that camp-like settlements are common among homeless Swedes too, and that the latter group generally behaves in a less orderly fashion compared to Roma people. The profound cultural difference between representatives of Swedish authorities and Roma people is, however, also emphasized, by stating that what may not look like a ‘home’ should be seen as such in order to forge contact, and that the group is so far removed from the Swedish welfare system that the idea of social services is unheard of.

Theme 2: the limits of universalism

Although the interviewees described poor visiting EU citizens as a general group of unique individuals they also underscored that needs and preconditions vary significantly between these individuals. It appeared as if this variability was at least implicitly attributed to group-specific characteristics, and these discussions touched upon whether individuals in specific target groups were considered as active agents in control of their situation or not. As we will show, the historical discrimination against the Roma people was considered as a key factor for understanding their present situation and something service providers must take on board. Thus, in mentioning structural oppression, distinct groups of EU citizens were in fact pinpointed – contrary to the principal view that there are no subgroups with specific needs. This tension between principled and more pragmatic considerations is apparent in the next quote where an NGO representative describes that services are concentrated on improving people’s general ability to support themselves, and that certain groups are ‘disabled’ in this particular respect.

The (name of organization) has been careful to talk about EU citizens as a group, and not about Romanians or Bulgarians or Roma people or whatever it may be. And at the same time highlight that the conditions and needs are very different within that group. And this is also a challenge. We’ve chosen to focus on the possibility of helping people to provide for themselves, in other words finding a legal way to make a living, which is not street work, but rather some kind of structured work. (Göteborg, NGO)

The interviewee highlights the challenges mentioning both EU citizens as one general group and meeting specific needs that prevail within that group. The method chosen is to target the ability of service users to provide for themselves. This appears to mean that different groups may be perceived differently but that they are helped in a similar way, by concentrating on one aspect of their difficult situations. In the next quote, an outreach worker concludes that it is difficult to know whether or not to acknowledge the specific situation of Roma people, as it may become a double-edged sword in efforts to help the group:

We need to learn from the past. And behave differently now compared to how we did in the 1970s (…) But it’s also reasonable to avoid talking about Roma people, because I raised a question in a context with Roma organizations working in Romania, namely, ‘Do you serve the target group by saying that this is a problem that mainly affects Roma people?’ And they said, ‘No, that’s no good, because it leads to erroneous interconnections’. They said that there are a lot of Roma people both in Romania and in Sweden who aren’t in this predicament. Who do not beg and who do not … and lumping them all together means stigmatizing all Roma people. (Göteborg, MSS)

This quote emphasizes the need to learn from the past and put an end to the structural oppression of the Roma people, and also that measures to this end risk fuelling stigmatization. The conclusion is that even representatives of Roma organizations problematize the tendency in the surrounding community to generalize the suffering of one small part of the group to the entire group. This adds to the interviewee’s dilemma of how to properly understand and express the situation encountered in practice.

There were other instances where the interviewees expressed that Roma people are specifically disadvantaged and that this makes it legitimate to single the group out and give it prerogatives. Roma people were, for example, pitched against undocumented refugees and unaccompanied minors, who were described as being granted more civil and social rights according to current Swedish legislation. In the next quote, a policy administrator concludes that it is a humanitarian act to employ affirmative action in relation to Roma people, considering how small the group is compared to the bulk of EU citizens that are better off.

I’m now responding in relation to, for example, healthcare legislation. For undocumented migrants, it’s pretty clear. And in addition, it applies to all children, not only limited to care, but all children, all undocumented minors have full medical care. Hence, it’s quite deplorable that this small group of people who come here and, in fact, should … Look, in the preparatory work to the legislation, we actually wrote that they’re not excluded, that on some occasions, EU citizens may also be encompassed by the law. Since all the other 500 million EU citizens have health insurance except this small fraction of Roma people from Romania and Bulgaria. Perhaps they are these one-off cases. (Göteborg, PAO)

This illustrates how the interviewees stressed that the legal status of different individuals determines their rights, and that this system of categorization and prioritization is not always aligned with either legislation or decency. Instead, it was suggested that the group of Roma people that lacks health insurance but needs healthcare in a host country is so small that it appears adequate to grant such care. The relative size of the group is also expressed by another outreach worker, but then as a key influence on how need is assessed and met:

Well, I think that’s a really tricky question because in a sense, you can say that all homeless EU migrants in Göteborg live in desperate misery. It’s an almost inhumane task – ‘You slept on the street but you’ll probably manage it!’ – having completely different standards for this target group compared to our Swedish target group. So many people are affected that desperate misery is what deviates from the norm (…). The three beds in the shelter we have each night, they’re to be used in cases of real hardship. I’d like to think that everyone could sleep indoors of a winter’s night, not only those who are pregnant or sick or really old. (Göteborg, NGO)

This shows the difficulties the interviewees appeared to have in dealing with a level of suffering that transgresses what is common for other target groups of service provision. Their conclusion is that the threshold for what is considered ‘desperate misery’ has been raised for non-natives who sleep rough. Probing into needs when the standards have been set so low for this group is described as both unprofessional and inhumane. The outreach worker highlights the interviewees’ general efforts to present their approach to poor visiting EU citizens as pragmatic and simultaneously congruent with principles and legislation. In the next quo

te, a social service officer with standby duties describes how the problems of EU citizens from, for example, Romania are understood in practice and met as both universal and particularistic:

Well, I think that if someone else is applying for assistance in a sort of different case, who is not an EU citizen, then you ask: ‘Yes, you received your pension and now it’s gone; what happened? How were you planning to support yourself?’ And they are obviously adults, and we really have to perceive them as such, even if the social security system is different in Romania, for example, and the situation is different. They’re here now. We’re supposed to stick to the Swedish social welfare system, and you have to ask similar questions if you’re going to make an assessment accordingly, but you also have to consider that this is an EU citizen who may lack the right of residence, but may be entitled to emergency assistance (Göteborg, MSS)

Here the interviewee stresses that poor visiting EU citizens are treated like other adults who can and should be able to present the information needed to make an administrative assessment, but that the outcome primarily depends on the legal status of the claimant. This line of reasoning works to elucidate that scrutiny in case management and variations in the breadth of services provided have nothing to do with prejudicial perceptions or practices. According to this line of thought, the universalism and legal construction of the Swedish welfare state overtrump potential aspirations among service providers to recognize and deal with the particularities of, for example, Roma people.

The actual service provision is, however, not described as always stemming from or calibrated to all social problems in society at a given point in time. Rather that the visibility of, political interest in and self-prioritization of certain groups of distressed persons were influential in this respect. A recurring example was the existence of mobile EU citizens who are less visible on the streets, are given less media attention, and become less social concern, such as Eastern European male construction workers who sleep rough and are believed to have severe alcohol problems. A key line of thought was that assumptions dominant in the media and in politics about discrimination of the Roma people shines a light on social work for a ‘group within the group’ (Malmö, PAO), while at the same time, services provided for other non-citizens, such as ‘third-country immigrants’ (Stockholm, PAO) remained indiscernible and passed unnoticed to outside observers. In the next quote, a representative from an outreach service illustrates how different groups of potential service users are compared with each other on the basis of alcohol consumption:

They first came here to work as capable craftsmen, but now alcohol has taken its toll…But right here [a place in Stockholm], you can sometimes see people gather, and the old men…the old Roma men that is, they drink quite a lot and that has developed considerably (…) But you have to keep it at a certain level, because otherwise you’ll lose your ability to provide for yourself. You must differentiate between… you can call it ‘moderate alcoholism’. I mean, they still live in their groups, with their families and women and that. They’re not like these Poles, for example, they hit the bottle and live on the streets and there’s more alcohol involved, everything that comes with abuse. But not these Roma people…(Stockholm, MSS)

In this quote, alcohol is seen to ruin the lives of people and make them unable to provide for themselves. It is described as a problem that adds to the initial poverty and contributes to placing begging and sleeping rough in a somewhat new and less forgiving light. There were a couple of other behaviours mentioned by the interviewees that were perceived as uncommon, but when present they appeared to transform the status of these EU citizens from deserving to undeserving. This warranted particularistic rather than universalistic approaches to service provision. In the last quote, a case manager explains that trafficking and child abuse are not looked upon mildly by the social authorities:

The prostitution cases I work with, they’re often essentially different from… different kinds of people engage in organized sexual exploitation. I’d say the beggars on the streets are more exposed, a much more exposed group and much much poorer. They sort of lack the ability to move around in the way these others (sexual exploiters) do in Europe. But of course, it does happen… the crime of human trafficking appears in the group of beggars too, for sure. At least that’s what some people assume… that you use your children to sit and beg, which we of course have to react really strongly against. (Stockholm, MSS)

Here, too, it is obvious that a moral distinction is made between criminal (prostitution) and non-criminal behaviour (begging), and that people who take part in the sexual or financial exploitation of disadvantaged persons are generally not conceived as victims who do what they can to make a living. This line of reasoning illustrates that there are limits to whether poor visiting EU citizens are seen as one group with universal characteristics or not. There are many instances in the data where the interviewees stress that a whole new situation emerges when it is discovered that minors are sleeping rough or begging on the streets. This was considered a high profile problem to which child protection services were ‘forced to act’, regardless of the legal status of the parents (Stockholm, PAO).

Discussion

This study set out to explore how key actors involved in street-level work with poor visiting EU citizens in Sweden’s three largest municipalities describe the group and its defining features. We identified two themes that captured essential parts of the problem constructions at issue here. One is that the interviewees gave the impression that the situation pertaining to these EU citizens almost reflects a state of emergency in Sweden. Another emerging theme in their line of reasoning highlighted a gulf between principles and realities. Over and over again, the interviewees underscored the importance of an egalitarian or humanitarian approach towards poor visiting EU citizens. They emphasized, on the one hand, the importance of seeing them as a constellation of unique individuals. On the other hand, the problems were often implicitly described as concentrated to a distinct group of people: the Roma people. The results suggested an ambivalent and complex notion of poor visiting EU citizens among the interviewees, where the principle of universalism was sometimes in conflict with the pragmatism required to satisfy the needs of one subgroup.

A main conclusion is that the professionals depicted the target group as a group comprising rational individuals that do their best to handle the adverse circumstances they face. The target group was by and large constructed as ‘dependents’ rather than ‘deviants’ to use Schneider and Ingram (1993) terminology. We identified very few instances of moralizing tendencies among the interviewees; contrary to how drug addicts and criminals are often portrayed, the responsibility for the situation was described as outside the control of the EU citizens themselves. Further, there were several examples where members of the target group were described as not only victims of difficult circumstances but also as being orderly and well-behaved individuals. This was underscored by references to other groups of less ‘decent’ individuals (for example, the Swedish homeless).

The ascribed orderliness of poor visiting EU citizens appeared to be a central dimension in the interviewees’ constructions. Although the lack of power is a decisive feature of both deserving and deviant target groups (Schneider and Ingram 1993), a main divide concerns whether your situation is regarded as self-inflicted or not. The portrayal of the group was consistently respectful and sympathetic, and the solution to its problems was seen as straightforward but at the same time as extremely complicated. It was complicated because these people’s problems were seen as stemming from long-term discrimination and marginalization, and it was straightforward because everything would be better if they were met with more humanitarian or egalitarian ideals.

The interviewees gave more room for individual agency in their construction of the target group than what seems to be the case in Schneider and Ingram (1993) portrayal of dependents. Poor visiting EU citizens were not seen as victims of tough circumstances alone, but also as deliberate decision-makers, who weigh the pros and cons of different courses of action, given the restricted opportunities. The interviewees constructed them as active victims, although they did not use that terminology. This suggests that, at least for the constructions explored here in a specific professional group, Schneider and Ingram (1993) notions may need to be qualified to a certain extent. This does not mean that poor visiting EU citizens were constructed as powerful, only that they were given room for agency within the constraints they face. In this sense, it does appear as if a lack of power is not necessarily equated with a lack of agency in constructions of participants. The assignment of (a limited) agency seems to reflect a common approach in Swedish social work. While Swedish social workers often recognize the structural underpinnings of social problems (for example, poverty), the individual client is usually assumed to have at least a certain degree of agency in relation to his/her problem. This line of reasoning may be underpinned by the Swedish Social Services Act emphasizing principles such as ‘self-determination’ and ‘people’s responsibility’. In this way, the interviewees appeared to approach a ‘new’ emerging social problem from an old angle; they made sense of it in a similar way to traditional social problems arising in society. While Roma people hold a specific problem profile, they were seen as equally entitled, compared to, for example, the ‘Swedish’ homeless, to have their needs assessed with as few integrity intrusions as possible.

The interviewees were careful not to highlight any subgroups of EU citizens, as that would imply an unjust categorization. In line with universal welfare principles (cf., Lundberg and Åmark 2010) and humanitarian ideals in relation to service provision, the group was instead defined as consisting of different individuals with varying needs. Still, during the interviews the term ‘EU citizens’ appeared synonymous with Roma people from Romania or Bulgaria, who were seen as being particularly vulnerable (for similar results, see Enroth 2015). Here, we see a paradox in the interviewees’ articulations. On the one hand, they wanted to avoid singling out certain groups of individuals from poor visiting EU citizens in order not to stigmatize them. On the other, they claimed that the severe living conditions of these individuals could not be made intelligible without recognizing the historical discrimination of the Roma people. This illustrates the difficulties the interviewees appeared to have when it comes to balancing different principles and perspectives.

There are certain limitations in the study that need to be noted. The data only cover the three largest Swedish municipalities, so we do not know whether they accurately represent the views of social workers in rural, less populated areas of Sweden. Visible begging is by no means restricted to the major cities. It should also be noted that the NGOs represented in the sample are all more or less engaged in intensive collaboration with municipal social services (in a form of so-called voluntary-public partnership), which may have downplayed expected differences in how governmental and non-governmental professionals construct problems related to poor visiting EU citizens. A sample drawn from municipalities with less developed cooperation may have yielded less homogenous perspectives. Moreover, the topic is sensitive and the interviewees’ may have provided descriptions that are socially desirable. The data only give a snapshot of a dynamic phenomenon, and it would thus have been valuable to make repeated interviews with the same professionals.

Given these limitations, the study is one of the few inquiries into how Swedish social workers describe and understand poor visiting EU citizens. The results illustrate the professionals’ efforts to navigate in rather unknown territory and make sense of their views in the context of Swedish social work. It is our conclusion that their constructions of target groups are important in shaping both policy and practice.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Forskningsrådet om Hälsa, Arbetsliv och Välfärd [2015-00898].