Financialization of Housing 2.0: Report from the Inside
After nine months of research in the Hemla properties in Husby, Stockholm, Ilhan Kellecioglu, Research Assistant of the project Transnational Financialization in Berlin and Stockholm: Understanding Uneven Urban Development Across Borders, has written a report titled Rapport inifrån “Hemblahelvetet”: Röster från Hemblas bostäder i Husby, Stockholm.
Hembla properties in Husby have been sold nine times in the last 25 years. Since 2019, the properties are owned by the German company Vonovia. In his report, Ilhan Kellecioglu presents Hemla properties as another case that display the effects of the financialization of housing in Sweden.
By action research method, where he combined his role as a tenant, activist, and researcher, Ilhan Kellecioglu has achieved proximity and a deep understanding of the case. In his research, he looked to Vonovia’s management of Hemla properties and the impact of the constant change of ownership on the residents.
Kellecioglu exposes the alarming situation of the tenants living in the Hempla properties and uncovers systematic neglect of the property maintenance, poor communication with the tenants, and the rise in rents. Kellecioglu claims that this is a mechanism to force tenants to move out of their apartments to be then able to renovate and increase the rent. Therefore, Kellecioglu analyses a mechanism that lies between displacement and renoviction.
In his report, Kellecioglu also provides a deep analysis of the local resistant movement and the engagement of the tenants in a self-organized campaign that challenges their housing situations and calls for re-communalisation.
If you want to know more about the local social movements, you can go to Ort till Ort organization, which is demanding the expropriation of Hembla, and HemblaHelvetet, which shows and highlights the problems within the houses of Hembla in Husby.
If you want to know read Ilhan Kellecioglu’s report, you can go here.
