"It could have been so much worse"

Tove Johansson

She stands on the big gravel floor in Kolsrum with her son Maxi, seven months in her arms. Tove tells me in the morning when their whole house burned down. Had it not been for little Maxi who started coughing, they might not have stood here today.

There is often talk of exposed residential areas in our larger cities, such as Araby, Norrliden. When I heard about the devastating fire in Kolsrum, and began to investigate the circumstances of what happened, I saw an example of a phenomenon that I as a reporter encountered in many of our small municipalities in Småland: exposed miniature residential areas in rural areas, often linked to a individual apartment building.

My review of fire records, police incident reports and people connected to Kolsrum showed that the apartment building was widely notorious and for many, the suspected fire did not come as a surprise.

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The attention-grabbing fire outside Högsby in February left Tove and Oskar and 19 other people homeless. Photo: Kaisa Lappalainen / SVT

"Since I am not creditworthy it has always been difficult"

Oskar Johansson

How did Tove and Oskar end up in Kolsrum? I wondered. One important reason was that they could not get an apartment elsewhere. They told me that they have low incomes, new unpaid debts that ended up with the Kronofogden and old payment notes.

I reviewed rental policies for all 18 utility companies in Kalmar and Kronoberg. And the documents confirmed the image that payment notes are a sink for those seeking an apartment in public utility today. Sources in the social service confirmed that it is mainly private landlords, such as the one in Kolsrum, which is then available.

Despite the initial role of the public utility was to secure housing for those who had difficulty in renting privately, the situation had now become the opposite. Something that worries the Tenants Association:

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Higher demands for profitability in the municipal housing companies and the housing shortage have meant that the weakest in the housing market are at risk of being excluded from public utility, says Inger Borg of the Tenants Association. Photo: Mats Claesson / Press image

"He should not be a landlord"

Lars Elmborg (KD), Chairman of the Board of Authorities Högsby

Who was the landlord? I found out through the property register who owned the house in Kolsrum and ended up with Tony Åkesson. A man with different roles in this report. It was he who gave Tove and Oskar a chance to get a home, it was he who offered them a new apartment when their old one burned down, but upon closer examination it turned out that his house had repeated shortcomings.

I requested everything that was registered on two of the total five properties that Åkesson's rental properties owned in Högsby municipality and got a big, thick box of paper in front of me on the table.

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Lars Elmborg (KD) is chairman of the government board in Högsby municipality. He thinks that the downturned properties that are rented out cheaply create social segregation in the municipality. Photo: Kaisa Lappalainen


"They need to come in and feel like part of the larger society, and not just be phased out into something where no one else wants to live"

Felix Everbrand, coordinator of the County Administrative Board in Kalmar

The fact that the housing shortage has become fixed in Kalmar and Kronoberg counties, shows the municipalities' own responses in the Boverket's annual survey. But how common is the phenomenon with exposed housing areas and why does it occur?

Felix Everbrand, former coordinator at the county administrative board, was able to give me a helicopter perspective. The housing market analysis that she has written is based on interviews with all municipalities in Kalmar County and she was able to give a more complex picture of how urbanization, cheap housing prices in the country and housing shortages interact to create this type of housing area.

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Cheap house prices in the countryside combined with the screaming housing shortage have resulted in downturned rental properties like the one in Kolsrum in several municipalities, says Felix Everbrand. Photo: Kaisa Lappalainen

Do you have something you want to share with you on this topic, or something else you think we should review in Kalmar County and Kronoberg County? Contact me at kaisa.lappalainen@svt.se