Social Assistance Recipients and Tenancy Conditions in the Private Rental Market

Abstract

The proportion of public housing is very low in Norway. Low-income groups must therefore enter the private rental market in order to rent a dwelling. This paper focuses on tenancy conditions in the private rental market in two cities, Oslo and Trondheim, for recipients of social assistance. The analysis offers valuable insight into overall differences between social assistance recipients and other tenants. In particular, it is demonstrated that recipients of social assistance are predominantly found in the most expensive segment of the private rental market. However, within this segment the analysis is not conclusive with respect to differences in rental fees. Furthermore, in Oslo the tenancy conditions of social assistance recipients differ somewhat from the general rental market in that short-term contracts are used more often while this is not the case in Trondheim. In Oslo private landlords generally have information that the tenants receive social assistance, while they generally do not have such information in Trondheim.