The affected organisations under Sweden’s disability umbrella, which include groups for the elderly and infirm and people with dementia, fear it will be difficult to find new premises that they can both afford and are accessible to the people they help.
Piteå’s Cooperative Body of Organisations of Disabled People (HSO) has rented the large, two storey building, in which 16 groups serve nearly 3,000 members across the city, for 22 years.
The municipality, governed by a Red-Red-Green coalition of Social Democrats, members of the Green Party, and radical Left Party, decided that the premises will be converted into housing for newly-arrived migrants.
Local government have said the disability organisations can move to a disused school, but different groups fear for how the new location might affect them.