The housing project where

young and old must mingle

By Maddy Savage

Could a Swedish housing experiment that forces solo-living renters

to spend two hours a week together be a solution to loneliness for
young people?

There‟s a beaming smile on 20-year-old Fia Stegroth‟s face when she bumps into her
new friend Rasmus Juhlin, a 22-year old who shares her passion for gaming, costume
play and anime, in the foyer of their apartment building.

“We have a lot of hobbies that are the same and after 10 minutes we became friends,”
she says, recalling their first encounter at a tenants‟ meeting a few weeks earlier.
“Clicked instantly,” confirms Rasmus, finishing off her sentence. “It was really fun to
meet each other."

The pair are among 72 people selected to take part in an experiment in collective
living in Helsingborg, a small seaside city in southern Sweden. Known as Sällbo
(which combines the Swedish words for companionship „sällskap‟ and living „bo‟),
the project asks all residents to sign a contract promising to spend at least two hours a
week with one another. Just under half the tenants are young people under the age of
25, and the rest are pensioners. Most live alone, although a few have relocated as
couples or brought their pets along.

“We try to work against loneliness, to make people be more socially included,”
explains Dragana Curovic, one of the managers of the scheme, which launched in
November 2019 and is run by a housing company funded by the city council.

Curovic hopes it will improve society, “because as they are happier, they will be less
sick, they will go [to the doctor] less... and they will use less public services than they
do now because they can ask their neighbours for help.”

‘Togetherness’

The residents have all been hand-picked by Curovic to ensure they have a range of
different personalities, backgrounds, religions, interests and values. The rent is

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between 4,620 and 5,850 Swedish krona ($478 to $602) a month, around the same
price as similarly-sized rent-controlled apartments elsewhere in the city.

But at Sällbo, as well as having their own individual flats (including separate kitchens
and bathrooms), tenants also have access to multiple so-called “togetherness” areas
designed to promote their interactions with others. There‟s a gym, a yoga room and
several communal kitchens. An arts-and-crafts studio has already been filled with
residents‟ mood boards, paints and wool, while residents have also begun stocking the
library with books.

The largest “togetherness” lounge has quickly become a go-to spot for weekly card
games thanks to its long tables. After her catch-up with Juhlin, Fia Stegroth is on her
way there, to give a hug to her closest female friend in the complex, Gunnel Ericsson,
who is 86.

“It's a nice idea to get together instead of each sitting in one little flat,” says the
widow. “I was so lonely after my husband died one and a half years ago... silence was
overwhelming and it could go past days when I didn‟t talk to anyone.”

Dragana Curovic says improving the quality of life of senior residents like Ericsson,
who lacked daily interactions, was the project‟s original goal. But once the team
started their research, they realised how much many of the younger tenants could
benefit too.

“I was kind of lonely when I was living alone,” admits Stegroth. “I went to work, I
went home, and I played on my computer, and went to bed... Here I am kind of forced
to go around and meet people,” she explains.

Solo living

In Sweden, loneliness as a potential social and health problem for young people is
increasingly generating discussion. Just as in the UK and the US, this age group has
now overtaken the elderly as the most at risk of being lonely. A 2019 survey by
community development consultancy WSP found that almost eight out of 10 Swedes
aged 18 to 34 said they often or sometimes experienced loneliness, compared to a
nationwide average of around six in 10.

Sweden‟s largest daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter recently questioned whether

loneliness among young people could be labeled “a new epidemic”, while scientists
have found that being lonely can be as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes
today or being severely overweight.

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“It's been a myth for a long time that old people are more lonely than others. But it
seems now that young people have a larger risk of being affected by loneliness,”
confirms Johanna Nordin, a programme manager for the UK-based mental health
charity Mind.

She explains that while loneliness is a global problem and can affect people regardless
of their living situation, in Sweden a culture of individualism that encourages people
to leave home and live alone at a much younger age can also play a role.

“It's [seen as] a good thing to be independent very early, that you can take care of
yourself, that you can do anything like a grown up,” she explains. “But we have lots
of young people calling us... And they talk about how life is really hard when they
start living alone: No one understands them. There are no people around them that
they can talk to.”

Dragana Curovic says that feelings of loneliness can be even more acute for young
immigrants. Sweden took in record numbers of asylum seekers at the height
of Europe‟s refugee crisis in 2015, but the country has frequently been ranked one of
the worst places for foreigners to make friends.
“Swedes are not so very open initially, they are a little bit more shy,” explains
Curovic. “You have to have a social network around you… and it‟s difficult to
achieve that in the beginning.”

To help improve integration prospects in Helsingborg, 10 of the apartments at Sällbo

are reserved for young newcomers, including 20-year-old Habibullah Ali, who is from
Afghanistan and says he struggled to connect with Swedes before moving in.

“I‟m so happy here. We all know each other. We meet each other,” he says as he joins
Gunnel Ericsson and some of the other residents for a coffee evening after their card
game wraps up. “It‟s helped me to make friends and I don‟t feel lonely.”

The Sällbo project is also hoping to mitigate some of the more negative effects of the
global trend for digitalisation, such as spending increasing amounts of time online,
gaming or on social media. A review of Nordic research released by Mind in January
concluded that while additional studies are needed, there is a growing body of
evidence which shows that young people who are more active in the digital world are
more likely to report lower levels of wellbeing.

“It‟s an effect of the digital era that we don‟t have to meet people as much as we did
before,‟‟ explains Johanna Nordin. “It‟s so easy to stay at home with your computer or
phone.”

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At Sällbo, wi-fi is free in all the communal areas, but tenants are asked to pay for it if
they want to log on in their rooms. “When we say „socialise‟, it‟s enough sometimes
just to sit beside somebody and feel someone near you – you can‟t do that through the
computer or the telephone,” emphasises Curovic.

Prospects for success?

Since opening in November, there is no doubt the Sällbo project has already had a
significant impact. Residents are quick to share their stories of playing cards, working
out or running errands for one another, while many of them appear visibly “happier
and more physically active” according to Curovic.

“There have been a few small conflicts – like in the washing [laundry] room, someone
took another [person‟s] time,” admits tenant Fia Stegroth, “but everyone is making
friends – it just takes time.”

When it comes to the rule of socialising for at least two hours a week, this cannot be
legally enforced, so nobody is going to be evicted for spending too long by
themselves. But so far, all of the residents seem to be meeting the minimum
requirements and have even set up their own Facebook group to improve
communication.

“They started to socialise by themselves, we didn‟t have to do anything,” grins

Curovic. “It was exactly what we wanted. We couldn‟t have hoped for it to go as well
as it did.”

The scheme is set to be re-evaluated by the municipality in two years, but its success
so far has led to attention from other towns and cities around Sweden, as well as
housing companies in other countries.

“I think the project has some promise because it is directed to two specific groups of
„lonely living‟ people – young people and the elderly – who are in a temporary phase
where you still might look out for connecting with other people,” says Gunnar
Andersson, a professor of demography at Stockholm University who studies living
trends in Sweden. “By being together – different categories of people - it decreases
segregation and also gives a better quality of life.”

However, he is more sceptical about whether Sällbo-like projects aimed at the general
population could work on a larger scale in Sweden, which has Europe‟s highest
proportion of single-occupancy households. “It is such a different prospect from long
histories of living arrangements in Swedish culture... and it goes against the drive of
individualism.”

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The current recruitment process to Sällbo also has limitations, because it requires
prospective tenants to take the initiative to apply and interview for spots, an approach
that might put off some of the most lonely people in society, even if they could benefit
from participating in the long run.

“When you are suffering from, say, depression, it might be hard to live together with
other people. It may take too much of your time or a capacity to even get up in the
morning,” says Johanna Nordin at Mind. “I think it would be too much of a struggle
for them.”

But tenants like Fia Stegroth are hopeful that growing numbers of vulnerable people
will get the confidence to apply to Sällbo or similar co-living projects in future, as
word of their impact continues to spread.

“It takes two minutes to send in [the application] to the people that can make you so
much better. So take that one step,” she urges.

“I really like the concept to sneak out and see all the other activities round here in all
the different rooms and meet people like that,” agrees her friend Rasmus Juhlin. “It‟s
just so nice to do things with your neighbours.”

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mingle