The Norwegian State Housing Bank is a Norwegian Government agency

Etat

Etat is a Norwegian state-, county- or municipal agency. An Etat is a subdivision of the administration, which has been given responsibility for a special area. An agency does not have a board of directors, but it does have a director, appointed by the subordinate organization. Normally decisions...

 responsible for the housing

House

A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...

 politics in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. The main tool for the bank is mortgages in newly constructed houses. About half of all houses after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 in Norway have been financed by the Housing Bank. The agency is based in Drammen

Drammen

Drammen is a city in Buskerud County, Norway. The port and river city of Drammen is centrally located in the eastern and most populated part of Norway.-Location:...

 and was created by a 1946 law. Total assets were NOK

Norwegian krone

The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...

 102 billion in 2002. As such, it is one of the largest banks of Norway.

The bank has three distinct goals:

1. . Stimulation to achieve a well functioning housing market.
2. . Provision of housing for groups that are disadvantaged on the housing market.
3. . Increase the number of environmentally friendly
   Environmentalism
   Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
   
    and universally designed dwellings
   Universal design
   Universal design refers to broad-spectrum ideas meant to produce buildings, products and environments that are inherently accessible to both people without disabilities and people with disabilities....
   
   and residential areas.