Record number of applications for student apartments

Number of applicants doubled over three years

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The chronic shortage of student housing continues in Helsinki, and the queues for housing at the Foundation for Student Housing in the Helsinki Region (HOAS) have been increasing year after year.
     
In August 2005, the number of applicants was 3,300, while in the autumn of 2008, the figure was 6,200, setting a record in the 30-year history of the Foundation.
      As a result of the keen demand, HOAS made a temporary rental contract with the City of Helsinki for an old people’s home, which was to undergo renovation.
      ”Some of our own residents also have to be evacuated, as we renovate around 200 student homes every year”, reports Heikki Valkjärvi, the Manging Director of HOAS.
      The worn-out student homes have to be renovated once every 25 years. In a student apartment, tenants change once a year.
     
With the steepling increase in rents, most students are these days unable to compete in the unregulated rentals market in the Greater Helsinki area.
      HOAS charges EUR 220 for a small 18-square metre room with the basic amenities in a former old people’s home in Helsinki’s Ruskeasuo district.
      In comparison, a bedsitter on the open market would easily cost EUR 600 to 700.
     
Next month HOAS will start the renovations of the ”ugliest house” of Etelä-Haaga on Kylännevantie in the Helsinki suburb. The three-storey building will get another additional floor, while some premises at the street level will also be turned into flats.
      Another floor will also be added to the HOAS building on Opastinsilta in the district of Pasila.
      ”Fortunately, a new building is to be completed in Von Daeninkatu in the suburb of Viikki at the end of the current month. Its speciality is a lobby where students can spend time”, reports Valkjärvi.
      Valkjärvi believes that this shared space will help students to get to know each other better.
     
The Viikki project will launch a construction boom, which is larger than any other HOAS project has been for many years.
      Another large building with more than 100 apartments is to be completed next year in Viikki’s Pasteurinkatu, while 140 new student flats are in the construction stage in Helsinki’s suburb of Toukoranta and another 90 in the Matinkylä district of Espoo.
      Moreover, HOAS will be among the first to start new construction in Helsinki’s new districts of Kalasatama and Jätkäsaari.
      ”Because of the new Aalto University, the focus on construction is likely to be in the west in the future”, Valkjärvi estimates.
     
     
FACTFILE: HOAS has 17,000 residents
     
The Foundation for Student Housing in the Helsinki Region (HOAS) was established by 16 student unions and student bodies in 1969. The largest of them was the Student Union of the University of Helsinki (HYY).
     
HOAS decided that student homes should be located in ordinary residential areas.
     
In the middle of the 1970s the state undertook to provide half of the sites needed by HOAS, while the municipalities in the Greater Helsinki area promised to provide the other half.
     
The Foundation has had student homes built across the Greater Helsinki area from Vantaa’s Korso to Vuosaari in Helsinki, and from Kivenlahti in Espoo to Helsinki’s Lauttasaari.
     
In total, HOAS rents out 8,200 apartments to 17,000 tenants, which is equal to the population of a small Finnish town.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Student housing situation in Helsinki worse than at any time this decade (8.8.2008)
  HYY: Helsinki rental apartments too expensive for students (16.10.2007)

Links:
  Foundation for Student Housing in the Helsinki Region (HOAS)

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