| Summary: | This is a qualitative study, whose purpose is to examine if night shelters effects homeless peoples self-perceived psychosocial health. In Sweden alone there are almost 18000 homeless people, and 12% of them uses a night shelter. The homeless can’t be seen as a heterogeneous group but instead homelessness counts as a state of being in. The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare have done mapping over the homelessness since 1993 and the problem is an important part of what the welfare system has to fight against. A night shelter is one of many contributions to aid the homeless people in an effort to get them off the streets. To do this research, we have conducted seven interviews in total with the homeless men and the supervisor of a nigh shelter. The data analysing tool we used was inspired by the IPA-method and we found out that the shelter had both positive and negative effects on the users. The shelter provided the basic need for the homeless such as food, shelter and the opportunity to rest and also to wash themselves and clean their clothes. The shelter also provided important contacts with the local hospital and the social welfare for its users. The negative impact it had on their self-perceived psychosocial health was that they had nothing to do during the day other than drift around the town, drinking alcohol and using drugs. Another negative influence was that the homeless men felt a loss of their right to self-determination and that they sometimes felt treated like children. Other findings were that they found that the society made harder rules and demands for them than other citizens has to apply to.
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