SSE Housing: a Tale of Two Students
For newly admitted international students in Sweden, housing is an exceedingly common concern, whether it be due to high rent or lack of availability. Students at the Stockholm School of Economics have, however, been able to alleviate their worries due to the SSE Housing office which provides apartments of varying sizes and costs to students for the first year of their studies. In the years 2021/22, these housing locations were situated in Hässelby Strand, Huvudsta, Liljeholmen, Saltmätargatan, Lappis, Pontonjärgatan, and Högbergsgatan. This article concerns both the negative incidents faced by the residents of Hässelby Strand and Huvudsta, as well as SSE Housing’s efforts to address these. I wish to produce a clear view of both sides, shining light on the seldom considered, yet acutely felt issue of Stockholm housing. To delve deeper into safety, venue selection and the Housing department’s relationship with property owners, I conducted an interview with the manager of SSE Housing.
How SSE Housing works
SSE Housing is a sub-department within the Facilities department of SSE. The Facilities department consists of 10 people in total, within which SSE Housing has a team of 2 consisting of the manager and a caretaker/consultant. Contrary to popular belief, SSE Housing does not own any apartments. They have made special agreements with property owners to rent the apartments from them and, in turn, to students. However, the owners keep their own systems of safety and maintenance. SSE Housing keeps these transactions to be roughly zero profit, having a markup that merely covers the costs of running the office: salaries, administration, electricity etc. SSE Housing makes negative earnings in some years, which reinforces their main and only purpose: to offer international students housing.
The problems in Huvudsta and Hässelby Strand
Several problems have been acknowledged, including burglary and trespassing, that have occurred at Huvudsta and Hässelby, fairly noting that such problems were not a product of any actions taken by SSE, further stating that they are not uncommon in large cities like Stockholm. SSE Housing even acknowledged that the neighborhoods of Huvudsta and Hässelby were starting to be characterized more and more with criminal activity, and that they were generally troubled.
They were receptive to the safety complaints made by several students and took proactive measures in increasing security, talking to the property owners, and having close contact with the police department but the sense of students being unhappy never disappeared.
Furthermore, there was an internal debacle with SSE housing and the property owners of Huvudsta. After the apartments were rented, the property owners sold the apartments to a new party, however, SSE was still bound to a liability of 3 years of rent. This meant that the termination of the contract would have cost a lot of money that would have been difficult for SSE Housing to afford especially since they make no profit. Furthermore, as SSE housing took their own measures to increase safety, the new property owners were unwilling to cooperate. Regardless of any pressure that was exerted on them, the owners still retained bargaining power because there was always demand for leasing apartments. Moreover, as the lease agreement was about to end, the owners inflated their rent requirements which squeezed SSE Housing even further.
Experiences from a Hässelby Strand resident
A Hässelby resident of 9 months recalled some of the events that he had seen and heard about at the housing location. He started off by mentioning that there were people who frequented the foyer of the building - at which the students stayed — and were seen doing laughing gas. He mentioned the fact that a lot of students were upset at SSE’s inability to carry out any action against this, making them feel unsafe.
One event was rather memorable for the resident. The Hässelby location had 3 attached buildings. The school had rented the apartments from one of them, however, there were only 2 laundry rooms shared between all 3. When the student had come to the laundry room during his reserved time, he saw 15 police task force officers. At this time, another (presumed) resident approached him and asked him if he could access the room. After the interviewee showed him the app to reserve the laundry space, the other resident swiped across his phone, managing to unlock the room and running inside. Immediately after, the police charged in after him.
An experience from a Huvudsta resident
Huvudsta has lately had a reputation of being in the news much more frequently, all for the wrong reasons. From a powerful explosion to an attempted robbery with shots fired in Huvudsta Centrum, the student building, located at Storgatan 64, has seen its fair share of action, standing directly atop the mall!
It might seem that such events are irrelevant since the students would be protected within the comfort of their own homes, however, what is more surprising is that the building in itself has had its fair share of incidents . After conducting an interview with a resident, I was able to get an idea of the types of behaviors exhibited by certain neighbors.
This student opted to live in one of the smaller apartments and due to the inherent structure of the building, each floor came with a shared balcony and the smaller apartments had windows close to these balconies. After just 3-4 months of living in that apartment, certain people started to appear on the balcony. They were male, looked around 30- 40 years old and, in the beginning, were simply smoking — despite a total ban. Over time, they started to knock on her window and door for their unreciprocated amusement.They even did so much as to try and get into the apartment, a terrifying experience for the resident.
The interviewee tried to solve the problem by first contacting the building and asking them to apply a lock to the balcony, however they declined for safety reasons since the balcony also served as a fire exit. The most that the property owners were able to do was have regular security rounds on each floor, although this did not solve the problem entirely, especially since the men frequented the balcony in the middle of the night.
The last hope of the interviewee was to contact SSE housing for help and since credit should be given where credit is due, they managed to respond quickly taking into account the urgency of the matter. They first suggested seeking the help from the building, to no avail, but then they managed to shift her over to another apartment on another floor.
The interviewee has stated from her experience that the main setback with seeking help from SSE housing is the fact that a closer connection between the students and the office is lacking. The only method of communication at the moment is through email which can take a while for a response and she has suggested the implementation of an emergency helpline.
She would have also liked, in extreme scenarios such as hers, to be moved to another location entirely, however, due to the high demand for housing from international students, SSE Housing had apartments fully booked all the way up to the next year, making fulfilling such a request unreasonable on their end. Nonetheless, they managed to take the necessary actions, within hours, to move her to another floor, despite the rarity of single apartment vacancy. Close contact was maintained with this tenant and she never mentioned any more disturbances while expressing gratitude for their prompt efforts.
However, changes have been made
Due to the numerous problems encountered at Huvudsta and Hässelby strand, SSE Housing, for a long period of time, had meetings and constant communication with the owners, however, they noticed minimal effort on their partners’ part to create the necessary changes desired by students. Therefore, the lease agreements with those apartment owners ended prematurely.
They then started a new collaboration in Häggvik. Häggvik seems to be much safer compared to Huvudsta and Hässelby especially since it is a rather new development with the student apartment building being the only one in the area. So far, the department has only received positive feedback on this location. Furthermore, there are two parts in the large building wholly rented out by SSE where access is prohibited to everyone but the students who reside there. This provides a greater sense of safety and a clear improvement from the shared buildings in Huvudsta.
All this being considered, it is crystal clear that, regardless of their resource constraints, SSE Housing have managed to remain a not-for-profit department keen on providing international students with satisfactory housing. And, despite the setbacks and problems faced last year, they have managed to bring change where students needed it most.
In conclusion, it was extremely important for me, as a journalist and former Huvudsta resident, to not only acknowledge the problems on a deeper level, but to bring forth the Housing department’s efforts to alleviate them. As SSE continues to internationalize, and the students’ desire for accessible housing grows in turn, it is my honest hope that SSE Housing can keep to its recent streak of wins, cultivating a safe environment for incoming international students.