SFS Housing Report 2021 – Better location to get student housing for the second year in a row
Four university locations receive an improved rating in this year's housing report. Last year's reduced pressure on student housing appears to be holding, even as more students return to campus education. A number of locations have accelerated the pace of construction, but there is much evidence that the overall positive development is partly temporary.
The Swedish National Union of Students, SFS, releases its annual housing report, which maps the housing situation for students in 33 study locations. The cities are given a color marking depending on how quickly students can be offered secure housing.
This year, 6 locations are marked red, 9 yellow and 18 green. Borås, Eskilstuna and Kristianstad have gone from yellow to green marking, while Uppsala has gone from red to yellow. No location has received a worse marking.
The number of green areas has doubled in two years. Several of the new green areas have reduced pressure on the housing market due to distance learning and the number of international students. However, in several places construction has also increased.
Yet only a fifth of students live in a green-marked city. Larger student cities such as Stockholm, Gothenburg and Lund have a particularly serious housing shortage.
– It is gratifying that several study locations have managed to make progress, even though the housing shortage is still widespread. There are many indications that the corona effect will subside by next year. The number of students is already at record high levels and more are about to return for campus education, says Oskar M Wiik, vice chairman of SFS.
At the same time, several student unions are sounding the alarm that housing costs have skyrocketed, especially for newly built homes. A third of students have rent of over 5000 kronor, which is almost half of their study allowance.
– It is worrying that more and more student unions are raising the alarm about skyrocketing housing costs. If the rent is not adapted to the students' finances, it does not matter how much we build. The housing allowance needs to be changed so that students can more easily take advantage of it, but we also need to lower building costs through investment support and changed building regulations, says Linn Svärd, SFS chairwoman.
About the report
The report contains a description of the housing situation at each study location. A study location receives a green mark if it can offer students safe housing within a month, a yellow mark if it can offer safe housing during the fall semester, and a red mark if it cannot offer housing during the fall semester. At the back of the report is a summary of the results historically, as well as a summary of how students are distributed across different locations.
The Swedish National Union of Students, SFS, is an association of student unions at Swedish universities and colleges. SFS has around fifty member unions which together represent approximately 350,000 students and doctoral students.
Report release
On Monday, we arranged a report release where we reviewed the results of the housing report, and heard from some of the unions that have participated. You can watch the conversation in the clip below.