Yesterday, SFS released its housing report for 2018. The second report that I and the SFS office are producing together with all student unions. The housing shortage for students is nothing new and the housing report has been released in some form for more than 20 years. The long history and the fact that it is an election year made me wonder: What has really happened since the last housing report was released during the election campaign? Here follows a look back and comparison with the 2014 housing report and a little about what has happened during the mandate period when it comes to student housing.
When we look at the student population as a whole, not much has changed since 2014. The vast majority of students, now as then, study in a city with a housing shortage and unsafe housing. The number of red cities has increased during the period, meaning that there are more cities where it takes more than one semester for all students to find permanent housing. This year, we know that seven out of ten campus students start at study locations where safe housing cannot be guaranteed to everyone during the fall semester.
What is positive is that the number of green cities has tripled since 2014. Even though the vast majority of students still face an unbalanced housing market, there are municipalities that take their responsibility for housing sales seriously and that, together with students, universities and actors in the housing industry, have eliminated the shortage. There are also examples of cities that have gone from being red-listed to being green during the mandate period. Gävle, which was named student city of the year in 2018, has shown that it is possible to solve the housing shortage, and that too relatively quickly. By having both municipal and private actors build at the same time as establishing a collaboration between the municipality, housing companies and students, they have gone from being red to green during the period.
In general, the construction rate during the period has been relatively high compared to previous years. Around 12000 student housing units have been built between 2014 and 2017. The corresponding figure during the four years leading up to 2014 was 2500. There was therefore a lot of construction that needed to be made up for at the start of the mandate period, which also meant that the high construction rate did not have a major impact on our reports. There is already concern about an impending recession. The worry itself is already negatively affecting the construction rate. Recessions also usually mean that more people choose to study and at the same time, the university is currently being expanded. The needs will therefore probably increase in the coming years, while forecasts show a lower construction rate. Active policies are therefore required to ensure that we do not get stuck in the current situation and that the construction rate is maintained so that we can finally make up for the large shortage that arose before 2014.
The election promises described in the preface to 2014 were specifically about more student housing. The Moderates promised to create the conditions for 20,000 student homes to be built and the Green Party would co-finance 10,000 student homes. In this year's election campaign, student housing has not been given much space. The Social Democrats have submitted a proposal for reduced building requirements in order to be able to build more housing, and there has been relatively little response from other parties. During the mandate period, the building requirements for student housing have already been lowered, including through increased benchmarks for noise levels. It is important that construction picks up and rents are kept down, but we cannot solve an unsafe housing market with unsafe housing. Some building requirements should be eased, but some are there for a reason. Our health and ability to study are affected by how we live, and reduced requirements increase the risks of poorer health and studies. Housing is also a prerequisite for being able to study, and if accessibility to housing deteriorates, the opportunity for everyone to study also deteriorates.
My hope is that the next look back by one of my successors will be a happier one. There is talk that the housing policy talks between the parliamentary parties will be restarted after the election, which gives some hope. There is still a lot to do, but recent years have shown that it is possible to build and there are several good examples that we can all take with us into the next term of office of how to build both cheaply and well.