evidence: On a cloudy evening in April 2019, Højte called a meeting at the tenants union. So many people turned up that it was standing-room only. Kaare Dybvad, an MP for the Social Democrats, was there. So were two other MPs, from the leftwing Enhedslisten party and the far-right Danish People’s party. Blackstone had become a target that shifted depending on your politics. For the left, it was proof that huge investors needed reining in. For the right, it was a foreign outsider that could be blamed for the shrinking stock of affordable homes in Copenhagen. The atmosphere was tense. "Tenants were talking about rent increases of as much as 250%," Dybvad recalled. "They shared stories of construction workers arriving at 6am in the morning and entering their bedrooms without notice." [...] Blackstone is now positioning itself as a solution to housing shortages in both the US and Britain. "We and our investors are focused on contributing to creating much-needed new supply," a spokesperson said. In England, Sage Housing, a company owned by Blackstone, last year became the UK’s largest single provider of affordable homes. (Affordable, according to the UK government’s definition, means no more than 80% of market rent.) [...] Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, listen to our podcasts here and sign up to the long read weekly email here.