From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas, SUNET)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 12 Apr 92 20:21:40 GMT
Reply-To: eric@sejnet.sunet.se
Organization: Swedish University Network (SUNET), Stockholm, Sweden
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-5

In article <1992Apr10.034910.17728@midway.uchicago.edu>, rtp1@quads.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert) writes...
>If there is anything wrong with social services in Sweden, it
>is that the costs don't sufficiently reflect ability to pay.
>I don't think it would be fair for my own dagis costs here to
>be subsidized down to $1000, but certainly I would support
>subsidies for those who are less well off.

This is, alas, very true. The apartment I now live in (and which I have to move
out of, because it has become too expensive) used to be the residence of a
retired lady who died a few months before I moved in. It is a pretty big
apartment, almost 100m2, 4 rooms and in a very central location. The first-hand
rent is about 5500kr/month, not precisely what I would call cheap. Yet this old
lady was living there all by herself, taking up a big apartment which many
families would have been eager to put to better use. Now, if she had been
paying the 5500kr (or whatever it was at that time), I would not even consider
complaining about it. What people spend their money on is their business, not
mine or the State's. But the reason she was living in such an expensive
apartment is that she was paying only a very small fraction of its cost, and
the State paid the rest. If she had been living in a smaller and less central
(yet reasonably close) apartment, she would have saved maybe 500kr. Sadly, she
isn't the only one in Stockholm in that situation: it seems that half the
building is rented by retired people, and I've been looking for an apartment
for 2 weeks now without success so far (since I work at night, I need something
central or close to one of the few night bus lines - I am willing to pay for
that, but not for space I can't use).

What is even more sad is that I'm doing exactly the same thing - using up a lot
of space that I don't need. But the difference is that, when I leave the
apartment, my landlord is probably going to rent it to another single person,
or maybe a retired couple, whereas bostadsf|rmedling would have assigned it to
a family if the lady had left it. You see, that apartment is filled with an
incredible amount of expensive, antique furniture (along with a lot of
worthless junk filling each and every said piece of furniture, except the one
he emptied for me). No less than 17 tables, and the only one which isn't some
kind of work of art (or "art", as appropriate) is the one in the kitchen :-) My
landlord had made it clear when I got the apartment that he was giving me a
good deal on the rent because he knows it is too big for me and I wouldn't
accept to pay a "normal" price, but on the other hand he simply doesn't want a
family with kids, or a group of students who are going to organize parties and
damage the furniture. Note that he doesn't own the apartment - he just
inherited the first-hand contract from his mother, and is keeping it because it
has financial value; he doesn't even live in Stockholm. I'm not blaming him, I
would probably do the same, I'm just trying to show how broken the apartment
situation is. He once said something about having a daughter of 12 or 14, who
will eventually get the apartment when she moves to Stockholm to study. The
bottom line is that I don't think this apartment is going to be rented to
someone who can use the space for at least another 10 years; in a country where
housing regulations are based on socialist principles, it is a bit ironical, to
say the least.

  Eric
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic