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C O N T E N T S April 2009
Chronicle:Freedom to choose– but only or a ewEwa Frisk, Swedish Uniono Tenantspage 2Financial crises and eects onrental housingpage 3NL: Woonbond signs covenanton energy-savingpage 4Canada: Olympic eects onrenters in Vancouverpage 5U.S. Tenant MovementExperiencing a Renaissancepage 6–7Ireland, with ew tenantspage 8–9New Zealand, where housingis never given the ocuspage 10Kathmandu, Nepal, and thehousing situationpage 11Tanzania: Rapidly deteriora-ting housing situationpage 12–13– FEANTSA vs Slovenia– China aims or newaordable housingpage 14Slovakia, Bratislava, andthreatened elderlypage 15KFTRA, Run by tenants,or tenantspage 16–17England: a tenant’s voice,and a new tenant authoritypage 18Financial crises end eectson rental housingpage 19–20
 
It oten strikes me that people who rent havesimilar problems wherever they live in the world. O course, the situation is not com-parable standard wise, and housing rightsare varying – but it seems to me that as thediscussions among tenants tend to touch on alot o the same issues; rent levels, cleaning o staircases, invisible landlords and politics thatis unavorable to tenants.Politicians seem to have the idea that eve-ryone’s aspiration is to be a homeowner. Butask any new homeowner in England today  who is stuck with mortgages they cannot pay and houses they can not sell, and they mightbe o another opinion.Right to Buy has not only been heav-ily promoted in England, but also by politi-cians in Sweden. Flats in houses owned by theSwedish municipalities are now being soldto the sitting tenants, and most times it’s “anoer you cannot reuse”, as these ats are sold well under market values.Flats in houses in prime locations are o course most attractive, like in the inner city o Stockholm where they generate large gains when sold. Investments in housing and con-struction o rental housing are slowing downconsiderably. Soon there will be very ew aordable rental ats let in the inner city o Stockholm.The housing stock which is currently being sold or bargain prices is, as I see it, theproperty o all taxpayers as these houses wereonce built with substantial state subsidies.But, the lust to buy is not very high inthe suburbs o Stockholm, much to the dis-appointment o the governing parties in theCity Hall. The interest is particularly low inthe large panel houses rom the 1960’s and
 
AustriaAustraliaBelgiumBeninBosnia-HerzegovinaCanadathe Congo (Dem. Rep.)CroatiaCzech RepublicDenmarkEcuadorEnglandEstoniaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceIndiaItalyJapanKenyaLatviaLiberiaMacedonia, FYRthe NetherlandsNew ZealandNigeriaNorwayPolandPortugalRomaniaScotlandSerbiaSlovakiaSloveniaSouth AricaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTanzaniaTogoUgandaUSAWales
P.O. Box 7514103 92 Stockholm, SwedenTel +46-(0)8-791 02 24/791 02 25Fax +46-(0)8-20 43 44E-mail: ino@iut.nuWebsite: www.iut.nuPublisher and Editor: Magnus HammarApril 2009Publication Design: Peter BäckstamCover photo. Street scenerom AmsterdamPhoto: Magnus Hammar, IUT
IUT member organisations in:
Freedom to choose – but only or a ew
70’s. These houses are in great need o reur-bishment and energy saving renovation.The share o rental housing in Sweden issteadily decreasing, partly due to a tax system which clearly avours homeownership, as a 30percent tax-relie on interest is available.Since 2007 we have had a government which has, almost without exception, pro-moted home ownership. Combined withthe selling o public housing, gentrifcationis speeded up and segregation and exclusionincrease. The municipal queue or a rental atin Stockholm has increased by 100 percentsince 2005, and today over 250,000 people areon the waiting list. The government’s speechabout the holy “reedom o choice” rings alse-ly in the ears o all those in this queue.The present government strives to makethe rental market more competitive. Dark clouds are building up or all tenants in Swe-den, in the public as well as in the private sec-tor. These clouds spell “market rents” – una-ordable to the majority.The Swedish Union o Tenants, with itsalmost 540,000 members, works hard to savethe “Swedish Model” where well built rentalhousing at aordable costs has been a majoringredient since the 1950’s.Ewa Frisk 
Swedish Union of Tenants / Hyresgästföreningen 
Calendar
 April 21–22:
UN ECE Workshop on Energy Efciency in Housing, Sofa Bulgaria
 April 28:
FEANTSA con; Local Homeless strategies, in Brussels Belgium
May 6–8:
Congress o SICET, in Rimini, Italy
May 18–19:
Workshop on Homelessness, by UN ECE, Husbanken, FEANTSA in Oslo Norway
May 21–24:
Congress o CNL, Conéderation Nationale du Logement, in Lille France
May 26:
European Neighbours’ Day / Fête Européenne des Voisins
June 4–6:
Congress o Deutscher Mieterbund (German Tenant Union) in Leipzig.
June 26–July 1:
“Changing Housing Markets: Integration and Segmentation” ENHR conerence inPrague, Czech Republic.
July 31–Aug. 2:
TPAS England Annual Conerence & AGM, in Birmingham, England
 August 5–7:
4th Australasian Housing Researchers Conerence, in Sydney
September 9–11:
Australasian Residential Tenancies Conerence, Gold Coast, Queensland
September 23–25:
UN ECE, 70th session o the Committee on Housing and Land Management, Geneva
October 5:
International Tenants’ Day
October 31–Nov 1:
Congress o the Danish Tenant Association, LLO, in Odense Denmark
November 25–27:
The 6th National Australian Housing Conerence, in Melbourne
For more ino:
www.iut.nu/conerences.htm
 
European Union:
Can 8 billion neweuros or housingease eects o thenancial crises?
On April 2nd the European Parliamentvoted on the opening o the structuralunds or housing.8 billion euro rom the EuropeanRegional Development Fund (ERDF)can now be used or the energy-ei-cient reurbishment o the existinghousing stock. All 27 EU-member states can apply or this unding, which is guaranteeduntil 2013.More ino rom www.iut.nu
The Netherlands:
The crisis as an oppor-tunity or social housing
The crisis has had a heavy impact onsociety. Building production in the hous-ing sector is decreasing rapidly. Many homeowners have serious problems inselling their houses, and dropping prices.Tenants might soon experience difcul-ties in fnding new rentals, because o thegeneral housing shortage.In connection with the crises theNederlandse Woonbond (Dutch Uniono Tenants) has, together with Aedes,the organisation o Dutch social land-lord, drawn public attention to the socialhousing sector. The social housing sectorshould seize the opportunity to buildrental housing and take over buildingprojects rom commercial developers, who run into difculties, and to convertthem into rental housing. The Dutchhousing associations have the possibility to manage this, because today they haveeasier access to fnancing compared withcommercial companies. At the end o March the Dutch gov-ernment decided to stimulate short terminvestments in new buildings and energy reduction, or example by giving sociallandlords more fnancial possibilities tobuild and buy houses, and tax reduc-
IUT members report on the nancialcrises and aects on rental housing
the sector, whilst also assists mass housebuilders, traditionally active in the pri-vate sector, to continue to develop new properties.There has been a considerable slow-ing down o shared ownership sales within the social housing sector as pro-spective shared owners ind it increas-ingly difcult to access mortgage fnanceto purchase this orm o housing tenure.Housing associations are in turn seek-ing to turn such housing into rentedaccommodation where additional grantis required.
Text: Darren Hartley, T.A.R.O.E. (Tenants andResidents Organisations o England)
 
Large increase o private rentals
 According to Inside Housing magazine(April 3) desperate homeowners arerenting their homes out, because they 
continued on page 19 
tion or investments in energy efciency measures. The government has adoptedmost o the proposals o the Woonbondand Aedes.
Text: Ronald Paping, Director o the Ned-erlandse Woonbond.
England:
Lack o credit andlong waiting lists
The lack o available credit is having amajor impact on social housing pro-viders, particularly within the housingassociation sector. Development o new social housing has been the domain o the housing association sector in recentyears. This is reliant upon levering inprivate sector unding to match publicsector grants. However, there has been areduction in the number o institutionslending to housing associations, andthose that are remain have increased thecost o lending dramatically.There is already a considerable short-age o aordable housing with approxi-mately 1 million people on social hous-ing waiting lists and 100,000 peoplebeing classifed as statutory homeless.The Homes and Communities Agency have relaxed the eligibility crite-ria or developments in receipt o publicsubsidy. This assists with ensuring a con-tinuing ow o aordable housing into
Impossibleto sell, or let.
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