How Norway Is Proving That Homelessness Is a Solvable Problem

How Norway Is Proving That Homelessness Is a Solvable Problem

Strolling around the major sites in Oslo, from the strikingly modernist opera house along the harbor to the 17th century Domkirke cathedral, there’s something notably absent from the streets of the Norwegian capital.

Compared to major hubs like Paris, London and New York — and indeed almost every other city in the world — there are barely any people living and sleeping on the streets. This is because Norway, a country of 5.6 million people, is making homelessness history.

“Zero homelessness is our main common goal,” says Hermund Urstad, senior adviser at Husbanken, the government agency charged with managing Norway’s housing policy. “We believe nobody should be homeless. Everyone has the right to a home.”

The Scandinavian nation has significantly reduced the number of homeless people in recent decades thanks to both sustained political backing and long-term, housing-led initiatives that have been implemented by the government at a national scale.

Norway’s example has shown that homelessness, despite its enormous magnitude and prevalence across the planet, is not an unsolvable problem.

In 1996, 6,200 people were homeless in Norway, according to official statistics, the equivalent of 1.5 people per 1,000 residents on average. By 2020, thanks to the government’s efforts, the number had fallen to nearly half of that total (even as the population increased), dropping the rate to just 0.62 people per 1,000. 

By comparison, in the U.S., the rate was 2.3 homeless Americans per 1,000 residents (771,480 nationwide) in 2024 — nearly four times Norway’s rate.

Obtaining accurate global data on homelessness is difficult due to varying definitions and methodologies for counting, but Yale Global Online estimates about two percent of the world’s population is homeless. The UN estimated that 100 million people were homeless worldwide in 2005, the last time that a global survey was carried out.

Norway’s definition of a homeless person is someone who does not own or rent a home; lives in makeshift or temporary housing; stays temporarily with relatives, friends or acquaintances; lives in a correctional service and is due for release within two months; or does not have accommodation for the coming night. Some countries define homeless people as simply those who are sleeping on the streets.

Definitions aside, the fundamental right to housing has been enshrined in numerous international agreements. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized adequate housing as a right, for example. The UN’s Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, who has raised concerns over how housing is increasingly viewed as a commodity rather than a human right, sees homelessness as the “most visible and most severe symptom of the lack of respect for the right to adequate housing.” 

In order to address this societal ill, European leaders came together in June 2021 to sign the Lisbon Declaration on the European Platform on Combating Homelessness, which has set the lofty goal of ending homelessness by 2030.

So what is Norway doing right that other countries could learn from? 

Norway’s efforts began with a focus on data. It needed to know — and publicize — the scale and scope of the problem before addressing it. “Before we got the numbers, people didn’t consider homelessness a big problem in Norway,” says Urstad. “You have to make the invisible visible with numbers.”

Since 1996, seven national homelessness surveys have been carried out, repeated roughly every four years, and this information is supplemented by research to deepen knowledge about the people experiencing homelessness. While profiles do change over time, typically a homeless person in Norway is a single man in his 30s, born in Norway, likely with a substance abuse problem. 

After the first survey, there was surprise at the high number of homeless people and their distribution nationwide, so the Norwegian government carried out assessments and found that the overall state of services and provisions for homeless people was poor. It launched a series of programs to prevent and reduce homelessness, including setting the goal of reducing the number of notices of eviction by 50 percent and the number of actual evictions by 30 percent. Other key policies included limiting temporary housing stays to less than three months and preventing individuals recently released from prison from requiring temporary housing.

Norway then took a ground-up approach, supporting local authorities to draw up action plans for housing and support services. Through the 2000s, it developed a national strategy of action plans, targets and reporting that all municipalities could use — while still allowing for significant local adaptations, since Norway has 356 different municipalities, all with differing contexts. “In the big cities like Oslo and Bergen, there are more mental illness and drug abuse problems,” explains Urstad. “But on the coasts there’s a very different situation.” In rural areas, says Urstad, homeless people tend to be younger, there are fewer immigrants and there is also better access to housing.

In practice, the implementation of Norway’s housing policy is split between the state, municipalities and the private sector. While the state sets laws and regulations as well as distributing loans and grants, welfare nonprofits work directly with homeless people on the ground, and municipalities help disadvantaged groups access homes and are responsible for finding temporary accommodation for the homeless. 

This “sustained, coordinated and integrated strategy” has been key to the success, according to Urstad. “We often hear about silos between different services,” he adds. “But we managed to connect people.”

Independent experts also point to the importance of housing-led approaches, sometimes known as “Housing First” policy, which prioritize providing permanent housing to homeless people ahead of less critical needs.

A spokesperson for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental body, said in a statement that housing-led approaches, which provide “unconditional, long-term housing for people experiencing homelessness are central to the paradigm shift away from emergency accommodation.” 

They added: “There is broad consensus and strong evidence that such solutions are an effective, resource‑efficient pathway to housing stability in a broad variety of contexts, even if there are short-term costs to securing long-term housing.”

Juha Kaakinen, a Finnish expert in housing and homelessness policy, agrees that examples like Norway and Finland, which has achieved similar successes in reducing homelessness thanks to housing-led policies, underline how important the supply of housing stock is. 

“It can only be solved by providing permanent housing,” says Kaakinen. “Providing affordable housing for people with low incomes and for those with special needs, it’s the best way to prevent homelessness.”

Research by FEANTSA, the European Federation of National Organisations working with the Homeless, also concluded that “permanent housing solutions rather than temporary accommodation” have been core to the success of the Norwegian strategy.

But given the constantly evolving nature of homelessness, challenges continue, even if a proven formula has been established.

Norway’s comprehensive social welfare system gives it the second-highest standard of living in the world, but this wealth is not something all countries benefit from.

And even then, Norway itself has faced difficulties when it comes to housing everyone, particularly after receiving a significant number of refugees from Ukraine (some 32,935 Ukrainians arrived in 2023 alone, according to Statistics Norway).

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Norway’s most recent homelessness survey, which was supposed to take place at the end of 2024, was canceled due to concerns over data protection, but Urstad says the rate of homelessness has likely increased since 2020, due to factors such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but also increased building costs (which have risen by nearly a third, according to Urstad).

The OECD spokesperson noted that while housing-led approaches are gaining ground, there is room for improvement, such as governments setting regional targets, improving monitoring outcomes and tailoring schemes to the needs of specific groups such as women, youth and people who identify as LGBTQ+.

Nonetheless, Kaakinen says that proactive policy to end homelessness needn’t be a source of political division. Since 2008, there have been nine different coalition governments in Finland, but all have agreed to work towards ending homelessness.

“It goes back to the basic values of a society,” he says. “We know from the experience we have had what works and how to achieve a significant reduction in homelessness. We just need to agree to work together.”