The company Svenska Semesterhem is currently investigating the possibility of providing modular housing for over 2,000 tenants on the small island of Ivön, situated in Lake Ivönsjön in northeastern Scania, to make use of the lucrative new housing contracts the country's Migration Board has offered private companies. At present, the asylum contractor is planning to apply for planning permission to show the Swedish Migration Board that the plan is feasible.
However, Kristianstad Mayor Pierre Månsson believes that the proposal is anything but reasonable.
"It feels more like an April Fool's joke, and we will do everything we can to stop such a large housing scheme," Månsson told Swedish national broadcaster SVT.
"We are obviously too small for so many. It is completely ill-conceived," local dweller Elisabeth Olsson told SVT.
While the debate on whether or not migrants are beneficial for the Swedish economy continues, the 163,000 asylum-seekers who were admitted on Swedish soil last year have been a windfall for Sweden's low-income and temporary housing contractors, who consider last year's migrant wave a godsend.
Earlier this year, Sweden's largest accommodation operator, Jokarjo, was reported to have invoiced the Migration Board just over 345 million SEK (40 million USD), equal to 945,000 SEK per day (110,000 USD).
Nevertheless, the company's owner Bert Karlsson was dissatisfied.
"I had hoped for more," Bert Karlsson told the Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen.
