Where can municipal employees afford to live?
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By Marjut Tervola
The high cost of housing has forced practical nurses working in the Helsinki area to live in the suburbs. Teachers, on the other hand, would seem to have managed better with the rising housing costs. This came out when Helsingin Sanomat studied where in the Helsinki region teachers, social workers, and practical nurses reside.
Data with the names of the individuals removed was taken from the membership lists of the various labour unions for the purpose of drawing up demographic maps of the Helsinki region. According to the report, it would seem that low-wage municipal employees no longer have any business living in certain neighbourhoods.
Practical nurses are under-represented in the whole of the Helsinki Peninsula, West Helsinki, and in neighbourhoods in Espoo dominated by detached houses.
Large numbers of them live in Helsinki and Vantaa suburbs built in the 1970s, such as Myyrmäki, Korso, Koivukylä and Hakunila. These areas also have plenty of rental housing.
The findings were seen by Mari Vaattovaara, Professor of Urban Geography at the University of Helsinki as serious evidence of the unreasonable cost of housing in the Helsinki region.
"This is the first empirical report that successfully indicates that nurses have fallen behind. All previous analyses on the matter have not produced results, even though the matter has been discussed for a long time", says Vaattovaara, who works at the University of Helsinki.
Helsingin Sanomat previously studied the living patterns of schoolteachers, police officers, firefighters and kindergarten teachers in the Helsinki region four years ago. At that time the situation looked fairly good: middle-income residents could be found in nearly all parts of the city.
Vaattovaara is concerned that the residential map of practical nurses is like a copy of the map of the weakest socio-economic suburbs.
"Many Finns dream of their own home. I believe that nurses do so as well", Professor Vaattovaara says.
The professor's observations are not very flattering, as local authorities should be able to guarantee their key employees reasonably priced housing. Attempts have been made to prevent the rise of these kinds of "euro walls" around the best residential areas through subsidised forms of housing, such as by offering those with low incomes municipal apartments for rent.
Vaattovaara fears that nurses are not alone with their problems.
"The same situation can be faced by other key groups, such as police officers and firefighters."
Teachers, who earn more than practical nurses would seem to be able to afford - at least for now - to live in the popular areas of Helsinki and Espoo - even in the city centre.
"A critical borderline in earnings runs somewhere between teachers and practical nurses", Vaattovaara estimates.
Total monthly earnings for practical nurses in 2006 were about EUR 2,044. For class teachers it was EUR 2,871, and for social workers, it was EUR 2,434.
Teachers often live in neighbourhoods with detached houses in Espoo, where their proportion is more than 1.5 times higher than in the work force in the whole Helsinki region. There are also many teachers in Lauttasaari, Munkkiniemi, Haaga, and Herttoniemi. In the centre of the city there are concentrations of teachers in Töölö and on the northern side of the Long Bridge in the centre of Helsinki.
Teachers seem to gravitate to areas with a good image. Vaattovaara sees one positive side in the data: teachers appear to have found the new residential areas of Vuosaari, as well as Kallahti and Aurinkolahti, in whose development the city made considerable investments in this decade.
Unlike teachers and nurses, no comprehensive residential maps could be drawn up for social workers, who are fewer in number.
However, they have spread out across Helsinki quite evenly in areas where the most important jobs in the field exist. The Espoo neighbourhoods of Kivenlahti, Matinkylä and Olari stand out as areas where social workers tend to gravitate. In Helsinki, many live on the Huopalahti-Haaga axis and in the Vallila district. In Vantaa, large numbers of social workers were found to be living in Korso and Hiekkaharju.
So what has happened in four years? Vaattovaara says that a metropolisation of Helsinki has taken place. The phenomenon is familiar from other large cities around the world which have been divided into rich and poor neighbourhoods. The social problems of society tend to accumulate in the latter.
Another factor is the rise in housing costs. A square metre of living space in the Helsinki region costs nearly one third more than it did five years ago. There are also fewer rental apartments available now, that private landlords have been inspired by high prices to sell their properties. Helsinki has not managed to implement its housing production goals.
"Nobody here seems to know what should be done about the matter. On the other hand, everyone is accustomed to blaming each other: the town planners blame the builders, and the builders blame the landowners", Vaattovaara says.
The report examined in which parts of the Helsinki region teachers, practical nurses, and social workers tended to live. Also, the number of those belonging to the three profession was compared with the number of residents in other professions in the same postal code zone.
The practical nurses are members of the Finnish Union of Practical Nurses (SuPer), who were not part of the recent labour dispute involving the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy). Vaattovaara is afraid that nurses who are tired of the expense of living in the Helsinki area will leave the region, resulting in a worsening labour shortage.
"From the nurses' angle, most small centres, such as Riihimäki, would seem to be very different already: housing is inexpensive and work is a bit easier. I believe that nurses can afford to live in the centres of other large Finnish cities."
Vaattovaara urges city decision-makers to decide above all to significantly increase the availability of housing - both rented and owned.
If nothing is done the current trend will continue, says Vaattovaara. "What is the situation five years from now? Will the teacher map look the same as the nurses' map does now? And where will the nurses be then?"
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 6.12.2007
MARJUT TERVOLA / Helsingin Sanomat
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| 11.12.2007 - THIS WEEK |
 Where can municipal employees afford to live? |
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