Denmark to invest 4bn euros in renovating public housing (Nyheder TV2, 19 May 2020)

• Denmark to invest 4bn euros in renovating public housing

• Original headline in Danish: Almene boliger skal renoveres for 30 milliarder - se aftalen her

• Published in Nyheder TV2 on 19 May 2020

• ​https://nyheder.tv2.dk/politik/2020-05-19-almene-boliger-skal-renoveres-for-30-milliarder-se-aftalen-her​

• Summary:

  • The Danish Parliament agreed to earmark around 4 billion euros (30 billion Danish Krone) for renovating public housing between 2020 and 2026.

  • The measure had been first announced by the Danish PM, Mette Frederiksen, on 1 May, it will prioritise 'green initiatives' and one out of seven workers engaged will be an apprentice.

  • On paper and a priori, this all sounds quite good to help Denmark through these complicated times: improving housing conditions via public investment supporting green initiatives and promoting job apprenticeships.

  • Then, of course, journalists should follow up on the actual implementation of these measures.

  • And we should also consider that the public authorities just own 9.96% of all the dwellings (and only 1.85% of "dwellings with registered population"), according to the data from Statistics Denmark: https://www.statbank.dk/statbank5a/SelectVarVal/Define.asp?MainTable=BOL101&PLanguage=1&PXSId=0&wsid=cftree​

  • And we should also remember the so-called 'Ghetto law' in Denmark, which from 1 January 2020 means that areas labelled as "ghettos" may contain no more than 40% of public housing stock. You can read more about that here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/how-denmarks-ghetto-list-is-ripping-apart-migrant-communities​

• Regulatory levels: national (Denmark)

• Keywords: coronavirus, Covid-19, Denmark, public housing, Ghetto law