Sweden: Tenants Organize to Defend Public Housing for All
From 1965 to 1975, Sweden carried out an ambitious effort to create public housing1 for not just the poorest families, but for a large chunk of the population.
Sweden was facing an acute housing shortage after WWII, as well as widespread poor housing conditions. In 1965, in response to a growing tenant union and cooperative movement, the Swedish government launched a bold 10-year plan called the Million Homes Program, to bring affordable housing within reach of its entire population. It implemented one of the highest per capita construction rates, building over 100,000 homes per year. By 1975, Sweden achieved its goal to construct over 1 million affordable homes under public control – owned by municipalities and cooperatives.
In 1945, private, for-profit landlords owned 80 percent of Sweden’s apartment stock. But by the late 1970s, over 60 percent of apartments were now owned by municipalities, public enterprises, and affordable housing cooperatives.2 Private landlords were eliminated as a significant force determining rent. And the quality of Swedish housing vastly improved. Most working-class people gained access to “modern” dwellings and amenities typically enjoyed by the middle-class, raising living standards for a generation.3
Today, public housing still accounts for nearly 20 percent of Sweden’s housing. In contrast, only 4% of U.S. homes are government-subsidized affordable housing, much of it in fact owned by for-profit landlords.4
Sweden has a long history of inspirational tenant organizing. Its National Tenants Union, founded in 1923, organized mutual aid, won gains for tenants, and helped to establish the country’s public housing policies.
“No to market rents"! Swedish tenants protest the privatization of public housing, and government plans to institute "market rents," which they were able to successfully halt in 2021.
The Right to Bargain
The Swedish tenant movement has won a nationally recognized right to collectively bargain with landlords. In the 1930s, militant tenant unions organized rent strikes and boycotts of offending landlords’ apartments and businesses; they won rent controls and established tenant-landlord negotiations.5 Sweden’s 1978 Tenancy Bargaining Act, which followed a series of national reforms on rent increases, makes collective bargaining between tenant associations and landlords mandatory.6
The National Tenants Union has annual negotiations with landlord organizations to set rent increases in both public and privately owned, for-profit housing, according to a government-recognized process, within the bounds of a strong national rent-setting system. Swedish rent-setting regulations limit rents, and pin allowable rent increases to characteristics of the housing, according to its “utility value,” rather than purely market rates.
Today, the National Tenants Union in Sweden has over 500,000 member households, and bargains rent on behalf of 3 million tenants. Negotiations happen from the local to national level. Tenant unions have oversight to monitor whether rent increases, including those for renovations, are actually necessary and fair, while court processes work out disagreements with landlords.7 Through the above system, rents increased an average of 0.8 to 2.8 percent annually in the past decade.8
Mutual Aid, Labor Unions, and Cooperatives in the Movement for Widespread Public Housing
In the 1920s, the National Tenants Union created its own banking cooperative, a national “Savings and Building Society” for tenants. This savings society has funded the construction of cooperative housing.9 In affordable housing cooperatives, tenants themselves jointly own a property to ensure it is used for people’s needs, not profit: the tenants agree to limit rent increases as well as how much apartments can be resold for, to preserve affordability.
The Swedish labor movement has supported efforts to build public, affordable housing. During the 1940s, building workers’ unions and unemployed construction workers formed a worker cooperative, called Riksbyggen, which sought to create jobs by building public and cooperative housing.10 In the late 1980s, this workers cooperative managed 180,000 units. As of 2019, cooperative housing was 24 percent of Sweden’s housing stock.11 That said, in 1968, Sweden abolished price controls on its cooperative housing, allowing coops to be resold for profit at market prices; as a result, much cooperative housing is no longer affordable.12 The conversion of public housing to coops has even helped to gentrify neighborhoods.13
Rollbacks and Public Cuts in the 1990s
But since the 1990s, Sweden’s government has carried out public cuts.14 Sweden ended the large-scale construction of new public housing, and has fallen short of keeping up with its population’s needs. Waitlists for public housing are now long, especially for young renters.
What’s more, large corporate landlords have entered Sweden’s housing market. Between 1990 and 2014, Sweden even privatized and sold off much of its public housing to corporate landlords, including Blackstone. By 2018, Blackstone became the biggest private owner of low-income housing in Sweden.15
A 2011 reform now requires public housing landlords to operate in a profit-oriented manner.16 This law also enabled higher rent increases in the private sector, because it repealed rent restrictions that used to pin private sector rents to rents negotiated for public housing.17
As the scale and influence of public housing has shrunk, landlords were able to win higher allowed rent increases at the most recent round of annual bargaining with tenant unions. Privatization, deregulation, and public cuts have increased poverty and inequality, marginalizing renters of color and immigrant communities.18 Displacement as well as housing segregation by race and class have grown, as housing policy has increasingly favored for-profit development and the affluent. Residents of public housing in poorer neighborhoods are increasingly immigrant, and stigmatized. Corporate landlords are now targeting low-income migrant neighborhoods, to profit from overpriced and neglectful renovations.19
In this context, tenants are organizing to defend public housing, and oppose market-rate rents. Immigrants and communities of color have been leading many of these fights. In 2021, the Swedish public forced the government to withdraw its proposal for market-rate rents. Large-scale public housing has benefited society as a whole, including lower-income and marginalized groups – but must be protected from privatization and takeovers by corporate landlords.
Tenants Fight Back
We interviewed several tenant organizers in both the National Tenant Union and other groups, about the impacts of government cutbacks, and how they are organizing to fight back.
One tenant lived in public housing through the Million Homes Program after immigrating to Sweden from the U.S. During her first 8 years in public housing, she was on a low income of under $1,000 per month. But rent for her 2-bedroom flat, which also had a living room and kitchen, was a very affordable $200 monthly: “I had no problems paying rent.”
She shared: “Public housing at that time [during the 1970s] in Sweden was very comfortable, no problem with electricity or amenities… Nearby there was a bank, a government-backed medical center, that is now closed. The public transportation was good, I could go anywhere in 20 to 30 minutes, get access to downtown, a medical center and library paid for with tax money. [But] these are not there now – things disappeared…. All types of families used to live in my building, Swedes, students, varied people. Now it’s mostly immigrant there.”
Over time, she discussed witnessing the impact of government cuts. She explained, “Now the right-wing has been dominating the political scene in Sweden. They are taking away services… like social welfare, transportation, medical care, while giving tax cuts [to the rich]. There is a waitlist of years to get into public housing,” because the government stopped funding new public housing construction.
“In Sweden, public housing is not just for the poor, it’s for everyone,” she said. “But as time has gone by, there were people who began to be greedy on the right, complaining that public housing companies should be allowed to make profits. In [2011], a reform passed allowing this. As the flats are getting older and need costly maintenance work, like to replace plumbing, [public housing and private] landlords are finding ways to make heavy profits. When they do maintenance or renovations, they attach these items to raise the value of the flat and then force tenants to pay a higher rent.”
To give an example, she elaborated: “Today, I live in a rented flat with a municipal housing landlord… My landlord is ‘semi-public’ or ‘quasi-government’ – it is a [government-owned] housing company that receives a lot of government subsidies to keep rents low, but [since 2012] it’s allowed to make profits, which the local government then uses for other things and not tenants’ needs… My flat was renovated last year, and after renovation my rent is 33% higher than before renovation. Originally, the landlord was saying a 25% rent increase… The renovation was well-done, but expensive… Thankfully, I get a subsidy from the government, money to help with rent, because they recognize I have a low pension. The government pays 80% of my rent.”
“These semi-public landlords are still better than the private landlords,” she pointed out. “We have [had] Blackstone in our neighborhood – they are the worst. They have the worst record addressing environmental [or health] problems inside and outside their apartments.”
A Blackstone-owned company called Hembla bought up homes in Millions Housing Program neighborhoods. “When Blackstone tenants don’t agree with a renovation, the landlord stops doing things for them,” she said. “A woman had cracks on her wall, and Blackstone put electrical tape on these! Tenants have leaks in bathrooms with mold. Blackstone is doing ‘conceptual renovation’ – cosmetic changes without addressing real problems. They raise the rent by 50% for the person who moves in, after the current tenant moves out.”
“We are fighting for housing rights both inside and outside the National Tenants Union,” she continued. “We can’t just let our rights disappear down the drain…. We are taking to the streets to put pressure on politicians to change the law. [In 2021], they tried to pass a law allowing landlords to adjust rents to market rate. In April 2021, people protested against market rent, over 200 organizations across the country. I joined the nationwide protests. The party closest to low-income people, the party of the left, put its feet down and said we’re not going to pass this law, the Prime Minister has to resign.”
“The nationwide demonstrations caused the downfall of the government. In June, the sitting Prime Minister left the government, and the new government took market rent off the table,” she said. “This doesn’t solve all our housing problems. Local governments are trying to sell off public housing, turn it into condominiums. We need government to build many more flats again with low rent.”
Voices from the ground
Ilhan Kellecioglu lives in Stockholm, and is a tenant in a building acquired by Blackstone and later sold to another corporate landlord. He is a member of the tenant organization, Ort Till Ort. Below is a lightly edited summary of our conversation.
Your family has an interesting story of moving into public housing, as refugees?
Ilhan: My father came to Stockholm, Sweden, in 1983, from Turkey. He lived in public housing. Because he was a political refugee, a trade unionist [fleeing] Turkey, he was given an apartment and clothes. My family first lived in a rental house of two floors, public housing, in Uppsala.
In 1987, my family moved to Vårby Gård in Stockholm, to a 5-room apartment, also public housing that was part of the Million Homes Program. It was cheap in those days. The interiors were good. We were my two parents and my brothers, 4 kids. My parents worked in industry. Most of my neighbors then were immigrants, maybe 80 percent. And now those houses are owned by Hembla [formerly Blackstone’s company in Sweden].
We moved to a smaller city, Norberg, in 1992, and my parents bought their own apartment – in a housing cooperative. The cooperative included four huge apartments, it was a collective with other people. Everyone had their own entrance and kitchen. There was no price restriction on resale [unlike earlier affordable housing cooperatives limiting resale prices to preserve affordability]. But it was co-owned.
That was the best apartment we ever had. It was very central, a luxurious place to live, but working-class with immigrants. Nearby were shops, markets, a kiosk where my dad worked.
These days it’s harder for migrants to get permanent status. The law changed. Those with permanent status have much better health and education access, compared to those without permanent status whose health is in decline… Those without are worried about work and housing. The national government has withdrawn responsibility and left it to municipalities. But the municipalities often don’t get access to land to build… so now more people are needing housing, than there is housing for.
In 2013, I lived in municipally owned public housing, as a student, in Stockholm. I didn’t wait so long to get it, just three months. It didn’t have a kitchen, just a hotplate; I shared a kitchen with other students. Rent was only 300 Euros monthly [about $400],20 and that included electricity and water. That was considered very cheap and accessible – compared to today, when students are forced to choose another location to study than Stockholm [due to lack of available housing]. I paid a student discount for wifi, 10 Euros [ $13]. My income then was around 1,000 Euros [$1,300] monthly, of which around 300 Euros [$400] monthly was a student subsidy from the government, and the rest a loan. I worked part-time.
After school, in 2013, I lived in Husby in Stockholm in my brother’s apartment, which was governed by the rent control system. Rent was 350 Euros [about $465] monthly, for one room with a kitchen. The landlord was Stendörren at that time – a [corporate landlord] who… a year later… sold [the property] to Grafslund, another private rental housing landlord, who sold it to Blackstone in 2016.
In 1996, the government sold public housing to for-profit landlords. Lots of municipally owned companies sold their housing. They said money was needed to renovate apartments. They sold 1,500 public housing units here in Husby, in exchange for buying a smaller number of apartments, 100 units, in Stockholm’s city center.
In 2019, Blackstone sold many of its Swedish holdings to the German corporate landlord, Vonovia. Both Vonovia and Blackstone have Blackrock as a main shareholder. Now Vonovia [through its subsidiary Victoriahem] has 1,528 apartments in my neighborhood. The remaining majority, 2,370 apartments, are [still] public housing owned by the municipality. A few are cooperatives owned by Stockholm Collective Houses [Stockholm Kooperativa Bostadbolag]. Most of the residents here are working-class immigrants.
My rent [in 2021] is now 710 Euros [about $840]21 monthly, excluding water, electric, and wifi – for two rooms, 47 square meters. I moved into a new renovated apartment for increased rent, a renovated kitchen with new counters and a modern oven. This is around 25 percent of my salary before taxes (and less than a third of my salary after taxes). My rent has not increased since then. I’ve been in two tenant unions, both local and district [levels of Sweden’s National Tenants Union].
What is the role of public housing in your neighborhood, now?
Ilhan: In my district, the majority of housing is public housing – very good public housing. In 2007, the local community had a fight against the public housing landlords when there were plans for renovation. The landlords proposed a rent increase of 70%. There were lots of protests and negotiations. Because there were 6 local tenant unions, they mobilized. The public company lowered the rent increase to 22% for a basic renovation, 27% for a “luxury” renovation with a microwave and other amenities.
The tenants are very low-income. So it’s harsh for them, they were fighting for a 0% increase. Most are immigrants, from Eritrea, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, here since early 2000. After the renovation, according to the politicians, 95% moved back in; since they had quite a cheap rent before, the increase was still manageable for most.
We have to understand the history. In 2011, there was a government directive that municipal landlords [in public housing] must be “profit-driven.” Since then, maintenance has decreased, quality has decreased – but rents have increased, and the market value of the companies has increased.
Private landlords have gotten bigger. Since 2012, the global landlords are entering.
But we see the influence of democratic control more in public housing, not private housing.
Despite our rent-setting system based on “utility value,” not market rate, private landlords have found loopholes to increase rent.
Now apartments built in the 1970s, that are 50 years old, need to be renovated to prolong their life expectancy for another 50 years. But landlords are doing it cheaply at bad quality, to only last 20 years.
Private landlords are not renovating. Only when the apartment is empty, piece by piece. They don’t change pipes. They put in new floors, get new [appliances] and lights – changes that under the rent-setting system, “utility value” allows a 55% rent increase in these cases. But there are problems with maintenance in the yards and hallways.
On the other side, public housing companies are renovating but don’t increase rent so much – by 20 to 30% based on the kind of renovation (although this is changing, we are recently seeing that public housing companies are increasing rent by more). The majority of tenants are moving back in after renovation. Those renovations aren’t luxurious (in terms of appliances) but good quality, still a good quality apartment.
Why are you organizing against corporate landlords, and what are your demands?
Ilhan: We demand that the municipality [the local government] buys back the [corporate-owned] houses in the neighborhood of Husby. We fight for the socialization of [corporate-owned properties], to make them into public housing. Most of Husby apartments are owned by the public, and the experience under a public landlord is much better than under the private ones.
The municipality privatized public housing in Husby 25 years ago, in 1996. Since then, 1,500 households in the neighborhood, 40% of households, have lived in homes that changed owners 9 times. Blackstone got involved in Husby in 2016 [and then sold its stock to Vonovia in 2019]. Tenants have suffered lack of maintenance, rent increases, problems with private landlords.
Today the two biggest private landlords in Sweden are both transnational ones. They are renovating, increasing rents, and evicting.
We must strengthen the municipal housing companies, and get rid of the “profit orientation.” Strengthen local tenants unions and the role of inhabitants in them.
There’s a lack of public housing, 800,000 people on the [government waitlist in Stockholm for public and private housing] with 4,000 more people joining every month, most young people are worried about their future housing. The state should intervene and create its own public construction company, and build more public housing. This will decrease rents for all apartments.
Now we’re seeing similar patterns as in the U.S., where low-income people are being pushed out of cities. The power of gentrification is big. We are organizing against this.
I live in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Sweden. Police list our suburb as “high crime,” but we have a very strong community. The welfare system is withdrawing from our neighborhood, where 85% of the population has a foreign background. Corporations are coming in. People don’t know where to move after.
How has Ort Till Ort organized during the COVID pandemic?
Ilhan: In 2019, we started a center together with a labor union and movement lawyers to give free counseling every Tuesday, and started collectively organizing around issues. We saw people with rent increase problems, evictions, and [problems with] slumlords.
In 2019 and 2020, we held meetings to prepare for demonstrations against market rents. Tenant unions were strong.
Then everything shut down with COVID. So we had a “yellow flag” campaign, demanding three months of no rent, and an end to evictions, in both public and private housing. We hung yellow flags outside our apartments.
The yellow flag campaign was the highest point at a sad time of our lives. I felt encouraged by the people involved. We felt the system was unjust for tenants, versus apartment owners. The state helped landlords pay their debts to banks when COVID hit. Meanwhile, tenants were supposed to still pay rent though we lost our jobs. That’s why we had the campaign, which spread across Europe.
We posted notices asking people to call us if they had difficulty paying rent. Hundreds of people called us. Many Hembla [formerly Blackstone, now Vonovia] tenants called, people had lost their jobs. We gave counseling and asked them to put up a yellow flag. It spread nationally and internationally.
We made a national debate, the issues were discussed in Parliament. We didn’t see an increase in pandemic evictions. Vonovia, a big German landlord, agreed to postpone taking rent payments, as well as several other landlords, [pushing] the problem into the future.
From July 2020 onwards, we started a different strategy and campaign: to socialize Hembla [Vonovia]. To socialize a private landlord. We were influenced by Berlin’s campaign [to expropriate]. We heard of tenants’ bad maintenance situations, and compared the difference between public and private landlords.
We interviewed lots of tenants and have used the campaign to help tenants individually. Landlords fixed problems. We went to court, to the local government, to Swedish national TV where they did a 1-hour program [in 2021]. So there’s a national debate on corporate landlords’ lack of maintenance and capital chasing. On how big companies have moved in to make money off of tenants, whose situation is worsening.
In June 2021, demonstrations caused the government crisis about market rent setting. The government was forced to withdraw, and we got a new government. It was a big victory for all tenants in Sweden.
Democracy is in crisis at the moment. But people are starting to believe again in organizing.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Swedish tenants in public and private housing unite to call for three months of no rent and zero evictions, by hanging yellow flags outside their apartments. Julia Arce and family in 2020. (Photographer: Veronica; Flagga Gult-Husby)
Simon Safari lives in public housing and was formerly chair of the National Tenants Union in Stockholm.
What are strengths of Sweden’s housing system?
Simon: Everyone should have access to public housing. That’s a Constitutional right in Sweden. It’s open to everyone and we want to keep it that way. Because if the market decides, companies are only looking to profit, they don’t take responsibility for the well-being of people in a country.
We want everyone to have rights, regardless of their income. To have shared responsibility and solidarity in our Constitution.
Public housing cares about people’s well-being, unlike the private sector. Private landlords are always reselling, their only purpose is to make money.
Today I pay $1,200 monthly rent for a 4-room apartment in public housing, just 26 minutes from the center of Stockholm. There’s trains. My neighborhood is mostly working-class, a few immigrants.
I lived in L.A. before, I saw the segregation, which was worse. In L.A., I paid $1,600 monthly rent for 3 rooms.
According to our rent-setting system, every apartment gets a price based on the things in it. Not just based on rooms and size but items [and amenities]. But only [about half] of municipalities implement this, wish we could do this in the rest of the country. [The rent-setting system also at times allows landlords to charge higher rents depending on location.] Closer to the city, rents differ, they’re about 33% higher. Many people can’t afford living close to the train station.
Benefits of public housing are the services, you get a quick response if you complain for anything. They come to fix it, at a reasonable cost compared to the private sector.
Because of public housing, I have more disposable income. I can save for retirement. Sweden has a high tax rate, but this means [resources] stay shared in common. We have a high tax, but the money is used for healthcare.
Housing should not be like other commodities. It has an impact on health.
What’s your favorite part of living in public housing?
Simon: People who live in public housing take care of each other more. They learn to live together. In a housing facility, you have to … talk to each other, you have a different cultural effect, you care about each other.
You build a community, and that’s security, the feeling of – [being] secure. You cannot put a price on it. People really learn to live together, you learn everyone’s good side, everyone’s bad side. Tolerating each other with different cultures and backgrounds. You’re suspicious of people if you don’t know them, but stop and talk to people, they become part of society.
In our triangle courtyard, we have really nice chairs to make a party. Everyone knows everybody, you feel like you’re part of a bigger family. I’ve an elderly neighbor, every evening before going to sleep I look to see if the light is on, is she okay.
Elderly people enjoy looking at kids playing in the garden. Those who have parties can, but before 10 pm to respect sleep. There’s a facility with a TV and kitchen where we can have small parties without disturbing neighbors. We residents take care of it, everyone contributes some money, 100 crowns [about $12]22 per event. We can have activities there like painting. We invite writers to talk about their books. Families with kids create activities for kids, every birthday they use the facility. Everyone can use it 24 hours per day, but quietly after 10 pm.
Tell us about your experience in the National Tenants Union?
Simon: I’m from Persia. After the 1979 revolution there, I left the country. My wife is from Finland and we settled in Sweden.
I’ve lived in public housing in different cities for 40 years. Now I live south of Stockholm.
I’ve been an active member of the [National Tenants Union] for over 20 years. I got involved because of neighbors – an older woman stopped me and told me to get involved. At first I said, ‘No, I’m not interested. Because every year I get a rent increase and you don’t do anything about it.’ She said, if I don’t like it, go in and change it!
So I started going to the local tenant union gathering. Then got involved at the county level, then regional. When I got involved, I saw the injustices in everything, I wanted to think about all these things, not just myself. To be part of society and make it better for everyone. I got an education, about the laws and rights as tenants, the system.
Now I’m chair of the Swedish Union of Tenants [i.e., the National Tenants Union] in Stockholm [County], which has 125,000 members in the Stockholm region across 26 [municipalities]. Every county has a small Swedish Union of Tenants group. Nationally, we have half a million members.
[In my municipality,] there are 95,000 residents. Around 12,500 live in [municipally owned] public housing.
At the local gatherings, everyone is talking about their situation, sharing. We help people demand their rights. We have gatherings to help people get engaged. We have mutual aid, people care about each other. We knock on doors if the neighbor’s light has been off. Most importantly, everyone gets to know the people around them. Where I live, the complex has 140 apartments. People get engaged.
It’s much better compared to private sector housing. Private landlords might change your fridge in 50 years. In public housing, they’ll replace it in 15 to 20 years. In public housing, your rights to have the apartment renovated are included in your monthly rent payment. So it’s less expensive if you want to refresh your apartment. In contrast, in the private sector, they use small things to raise the rent a lot. They double the rent to do an elementary renovation, like painting the walls of places built 50 years ago.
Tell us about how the tenant union negotiates rents with landlords?
Simon: Each county has its own tenants union [branch] that negotiates with the landlords in that county. We participate in… rent-setting.
At minimum, 3 people – a host, a documenter, and a negotiator – can start a small tenant organization in their living area and negotiate.
We have a mission recognized by the government to negotiate with both private and public landlords. If [someone] doesn’t agree with a rent adjustment, the government checks the price of a similar apartment. Rent shouldn’t differ by more than 5%. If the landlord disagrees, they can go to a higher court that decides. But sometimes it takes years to get an agreement.
In my [municipality], Botkyrka, there are 12,000 apartments in public housing covered by the union’s negotiations. We represent these all. Every year, we choose representatives for our negotiations team, 25 people, who also get help from a regional negotiator.
The team discusses with the owner what money is needed for. Rent increases should match inflation. If the landlord demands a 3% rent increase, maybe they’ll get a 1% or 1.5% increase. If we were not negotiating over the last 20 years, maybe rents would be up 40 to 50%.
Every year [during negotiations], we go through the books. Compare costs, what rent was last year, if they used up all the money and what they did with it. We’re like bank people and go through every number. If they spent cleverly or as promised, if they just saved. If they demand a rent increase, they have to factor in unused money. We don’t have that power in private housing, it’s not legally required.
The process takes 1 to 3 months. Because we bring evidence… Local representatives [of the tenants] talk not just about rent, but living conditions. When the owner claims they did things, we show photos to show they didn’t.
The tenant union gives trainings on how to negotiate if you want to participate. There’s an intensive course for 1 week, that can also be spread out. So the negotiation team is ready to push back. Under the law, tenant union members can get a stipend for participating in the negotiations.
We negotiated for tenant union members in the public housing, but also for non-members, too, which is required by the government. Rent negotiations also cover the private sector, too, but it’s not as strong. The owner goes against it, finds ways of getting rid of tenants who complain, when they organize. They aren’t able to organize as strongly as in public housing, but we try to help them. If there are unlawful rent increases, we negotiate to get the money back.
Private landlords own 3,500 units in Botkyrka. The percent of privately-owned apartments in Stockholm is rising, it’s scary.
Public housing in Sweden. (Photographer: Holger Ellgaard; CC)
What has your experience in public housing been, as a migrant?
Simon: I first came to Sweden as a migrant. They let me study, and said I’d be helped in 6 months with housing and daily needs. I studied 8 hours a day, in a public language school to learn Swedish, and studied at home to learn as fast as I could.
After 6 months… I wanted to get work. In Persia, I had worked… as a helicopter technician. Here they evaluated my degrees, and said although I qualified, to get a job in my field, I must be a citizen first. So… I worked making wrenches... as an interpreter… Then for a Swiss company, learning about plastics, where I stayed for 25 years. In 2006, I started my own business in the same line. But now I’m on rest, and devote all my time to the tenant union.
I’ve mostly lived in public housing, not private. From reading the papers and talking with people, I’ve learned people aren’t treated well in private housing.
In the 1980s, I lived in public housing even though I wasn’t a citizen. I had a guarantee from the [local government] to have housing, even if I didn’t have enough income. The social department helps those who can’t afford their rent, for a limited time. I had a status almost like a green card.
After I became a citizen, I could borrow money, start my own business. Before I couldn’t get bank loans, you have to live poorly.
My rent was 10% of my income when I was studying. 1,500 crowns [about $225]23 for rent. My apartment in public housing was 2 rooms, with a luxurious, big kitchen. I was very pleased. I lived there with my partner in 1987 to 1996, near Uppsala. As a student, 50% of my income was loans from the government, 50% was from working.
When we had my first child, we moved into a 3-room apartment in public housing. The building was a mix of working-class people, pensioners, students. The area had Finnish, Norwegian, and Polish immigrants who came to Sweden to work. There was a school and kindergarten near the house. My partner worked while also completing her studies to become a nurse.
I moved to Stockholm in 1996 after I got the job with the Swiss company. My wife also got a job, and we found an apartment close to her work and school. We chose a new apartment, and really liked it. We had no problem waiting to find an apartment, many apartments were empty. The municipal housing company had almost 1,000 apartments empty, and they like to bring in people who worked. But now, there are [so many] people in line to get a public housing apartment in Stockholm.
I’ve been living in my current apartment for almost 20 years, which was newly built in 1993. My rent has increased by 80% since then: it was 6,200 crowns [about $580]24 when I moved in, now almost 11,000 crowns [about $1,280].25 This is due over time, to the incremental 2% increases per year.
When I first moved in, my salary was low but the rent was reasonable, together with electricity and phone it was almost 30% of both our combined household incomes. I was making 20,000 crowns [$1,880] after taxes, and my wife about 16,000-18,000 crowns [about $1,500-$1,690].26
My wife and I have both climbed in salaries. Because of this, [housing] is 10-15% of our salaries.
But today, I couldn’t afford it if I was alone. Other costs are very high, having to pay for phone, electricity, warm and cold water. In my county, the municipality pays for water in publicly owned housing, the private sector excludes water and you have to pay for it separately. In public housing, we pay for electricity and the phone ourselves.
We have a 4-room apartment. The kitchen has an oven. We have two cars in our garage, in the pandemic we were forced to have cars because we couldn’t use public transportation. We pay additional for the garage, without the garage our rent would be 10,200 crowns [about $1,190].27 My building is a triangle around a garden courtyard. There are 148 apartments spread in 3-4 floors. It’s quite nice, close to nature.
My landlord, Botkyrkabyggen, owns 12,000 public housing units in the area, and is an affordable housing provider.
In the past, every 15 years the public housing landlord is supposed to renovate to change the color, the refrigerator [for no extra charge; costs should already be covered in monthly rent]. Now if you ask for changes you have to pay extra, 200 crowns [about $23]28 more every month. We are paying 400 crowns [$46]29 less, because we skipped having renovations. We’d like to renovate and 400 crowns is affordable – but if things are functional, why renovate.
In 2012, the government changed the rent-setting model. Everything was reset according to parameters, everything has a price nowadays on top of basic rent…
The households in my building are mixed, that’s the beauty of public housing. It’s for everyone, there are families, single people, elderly, immigrants, all ages. There are new move-ins each year. The landlord is interested in mixed populations, families with kids, pensioners. It’s a special quiet place for pensioners. Unfortunately, it’s more expensive [compared to other neighborhoods]. Most residents are middle-class, like myself, those with a good pension can afford it. There’s a minority of lower-income people, students, retired people, with smaller apartments that are 1 room. Families with kids get 1,000 crowns [about $116]30 extra income per kid under 18 [through social welfare], which helps families afford to live here.
Migrants often first go to cheaper places, and later move to a better place. But maybe in the end buy their own. If you buy, the law says you must live there at least 5 years if you want to sell for a higher price, otherwise you must pay a high tax [to discourage flipping].
What are lessons?
Simon: We are all people on this planet. Because of the changing climate every one of us needs to take responsibility. We cannot afford to live in luxury… if we want to save this planet, try to live [ecologically]. We the people of this planet, especially the richer countries, have to take responsibility to help poorer ones. Everyone should have housing a suitable size for their family.
For young people now, there’s not enough housing for everyone, they’re really in trouble now. The government needs to take responsibility.
Market pricing will damage the housing system. Housing is a necessity for every human being. You as the government have the responsibility to take care of it. You cannot delegate it to investors, because they don’t have responsibility to take care of people. You cannot leave everything to the private sector. Internationally, we have to demand for governments to take care of people. Don’t let Blackstone take over. We have to think, as human beings, people have a right to housing.
In Sweden social housing is called “public housing” because it is owned by government entities or public enterprises, rather than private non-profits. Historically, Swedish public housing has also sought to meet the housing needs of the majority of the population, rather than a low-income minority – according to a principle of “tenure neutrality” where renters should have as much housing security, affordability, and control over living conditions as homeowners.
Local government and public utility enterprises owned 38 percent. Gilderbloom and Appelbaum, Rethinking Rental Housing, 169–70.
Gilderbloom and Appelbaum, Rethinking Rental Housing, 169–70.
Terner Center for Housing Innovation, “Housing in Sweden: An Overview” (Terner Center for Housing Innovation, November 2017), 6, https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Swedish_Housing_System_Memo.pdf; Amee Chew, “Social Housing for All: A Vision for Thriving Communities, Renter Power, and Racial Justice,” (Center for Popular Democracy; Renters Rising) March 2022, https://www.populardemocracy.org/socialhousingforall.
E.g., Hannes Rolf, “A Union for Tenants: Tenant Militancy in Gothenburg as a Historical Example.” Radical Housing Journal 4, no. 1 (May 31, 2021): 167–86, https://doi.org/10.54825/VFOQ7982.
Anders Victorin, “Landlord and Tenant Relations in Sweden: A Case of Collective Bargaining,” Stockholm, 1979, https://lawpub.se/utils/downloadsection/5204; Haymanot Baheru, “Swedish Legislation of Residential Tenancies: An Interaction between Collective Bargaining and Mandatory Regulation,” Revista Electronica de Direito, Faculdade de Direito, Universidade do Porto, 2017, https://www.uni-bremen.de/fileadmin/user_upload/fachbereiche/fb6/fb6/Forschung/ZERP/TENLAW/FollowUp/Malta/Malta_4.3__2018__Regulating_Rental_Conditions_through_Collective_Bargaining_-_H_Baheru.pdf.
Hyresgästföreningen (Swedish Union of Tenants), “About Us: Introducing The Swedish Union of Tenants” (Hyresgästföreningen [Swedish Union of Tenants], 2017), http://www.iut.nu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/A-Introduction-to-the-Swedish-Union-of-Tenants.pdf; Gilderbloom and Appelbaum, Rethinking Rental Housing, 171–72; Lind, “Social Housing in Sweden,” 94–96; private communication from Prof. Dominika V. Polanska, February 15, 2022.
Statistics Sweden, “Highest Rent Increase in Six Years,” Statistiska Centralbyrån, October 4, 2019, http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/housing-construction-and-building/housing-and-rent-data/rents-for-dwellings/pong/statistical-news/rents-for-dwellings-2019/.
Gilderbloom and Appelbaum, Rethinking Rental Housing, 167.
Gilderbloom and Appelbaum, Rethinking Rental Housing, 168.
Gilderbloom and Appelbaum, Rethinking Rental Housing, 168; Co-operative Housing International, “Co-Operative Housing: About Sweden,” Co-operative Housing International, 2022, https://www.housinginternational.coop/co-ops/sweden/.
E.g., Jardar Sørvoll and Bo Bengtsson, “The Pyrrhic Victory of Civil Society Housing? Co-Operative Housing in Sweden and Norway,” International Journal of Housing Policy, no. 18 (2018): 1, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616718.2016.1162078.
Roger Andersson and Lena Magnusson Turner, “Segregation, Gentrification, and Residualisation: From Public Housing to Market-Driven Housing Allocation in Inner City Stockholm,” International Journal of Housing Policy 14, no. 1 (January 2, 2014): 3–29, https://doi.org/10.1080/14616718.2013.872949.
Anton Osgard, “Sweden’s Collective Bargaining for Rents Must Be Defended,” Jacobin, July 12, 2021, https://jacobin.com/2021/07/sweden-left-party-social-democrats-housing-crisis; Brett Christophers, “A Monstrous Hybrid: The Political Economy of Housing in Early Twenty-First Century Sweden,” New Political Economy 18, no. 6 (December 1, 2013): 885–911, https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2012.753521.
Push, Documentary, 2019; Jennie Gustafsson, “The State of Tenancy: Rental Housing and Municipal Statecraft in Malmö, Sweden,” Doctoral Thesis in Geography with Emphasis on Human Geography, Stockholm University, 2022, https://su.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1630089/FULLTEXT01.pdf.
Christophers, “A Monstrous Hybrid,” 893, https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2012.753521.
Christophers, “A Monstrous Hybrid,” 898, https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2012.753521.
Karin Grundström and Irene Molina, “From Folkhem to Lifestyle Housing in Sweden: Segregation and Urban Form, 1930s–2010s,” International Journal of Housing Policy, July 2, 2016, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616718.2015.1122695.
Defne Kadıoğlu and Ilhan Kellecioğlu, “Flowing Capital-Disrupted Homes: Financialisation and Maintenance of Rental Housing in Sweden,” Antipode (2023). https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12981.
Conversion from Euros to dollars is using 2013 exchange rates.
Using 2021 exchange rates.
Conversion from crowns to dollars using 2021 exchange rates.
Using 1987 exchange rates.
Using 2001 exchange rates.
Using 2021 exchange rates.
Using 2001 exchange rates.
Using 2021 exchange rates.
Using 2021 exchange rates.
Using 2021 exchange rates.
Using 2021 exchange rates.
