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The new European Commission takes office during an "EU Housing Week"
Following up its endorsement at the European Parliament Plenary, the European Commission is taking officially over this week in Brussels, turning a new page in the capital of the EU. President Van der Leyen highlighted addressing the MEPs last week in Strasbourg the need for a just and inclusive generational transition towards climate neutrality by 2050 requiring massive public and private investments in innovation, research, infrastructure, housing and training. You may access her full speech here. At the same time, according to leading news portal EurActiv, the housing sector shall be flagship for Europe's Green New Deal.
This fresh start for the Commission coincides with a sort of "housing week" in Brussels, as a number of events taking place over the following days confirm the growing momentum around housing at EU level, in particular as part of the top priority for the EU executive body, the Green New Deal. In a nutshell:
On December 4th, a Housing Europe delegation led by our President will meet the Head of Cabinet of the European Commission Executive Vice-President, Frans Timmermans in Brussels. We'll keep you posted.
Read here our outline of the key Commissioners for our sector. Housing Europe is welcoming the new Commissioners to their desks with letters highlighting the main points that require action from them related to our sector.
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CEB supports social and affordable rental housing in Ireland and Slovenia
The Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) has approved a €150 million loan to the Housing Finance Agency (HFA), the public entity mandated with providing financing to Approved Housing Bodies and Local Authorities. The funds, which will be used for the retrofitting of existing housing units and the construction of new, energy-efficient social housing, are expected to create over 230,000 square meters of dwelling space, providing at least 8,000 low-income persons with a new home.
Read more
Last month, another €50 million CEB loan was granted to Housing Europe member, the Housing Fund of Slovenia, aiming at providing access to affordable rental housing to those increasingly priced out of the market, namely young people and the elderly. The objective is to directly contribute to an increase of Slovenia's public rental housing stock by 4%. The agreement was announced upon the conclusion of the CEB Vice-Governor, Tomáš Boček's official visit to the country.
Read more
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Housing Europe at OECD Workshop on prevention of homelessness
Our Secretary General, Sorcha Edwards and our Research Coordinator, Dara Turnbull contributed to the OECD Workshop on Homelessness and Affordable Housing Policies that took place on November 27th in Paris. The event aimed at sharing research findings and policy experiences around homelessness and affordable housing, while seeking guidance on future work around homelessness and affordable housing policies.
Sorcha took part in the session that looked at ways of preventing homelessness with a focus on increasing the supply of affordable housing. Sorcha made the case that expansion of the social, public, cooperative housing stock is clearly needed, explaining why a focus on definitions of social housing or stricter allocation criteria for access to housing is not the answer to the housing crisis, a point actually shared by most participants.
Our Secretary General also had the chance to give a copy of 'The State of Housing in the EU 2019' to the Head of Social Policy at the OECD, Monika Queisser (pic on the left).
Find the presentations of the day here
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Housing Europe shares solutions to the affordable rental housing challenge in Bilbao
Our Secretary General, Sorcha Edwards shared last week our proposed solutions to the affordable rental housing challenge in Europe at the Basque Observatory of Housing conference in Bilbao, Spain. Sorcha contributed in this way to a valuable reality check representatives from major European Cities, including the City of Paris Vice-Mayor, Ian Brossat and representatives from Berliner Mieterverein (Tenants' Union Berlin) and the Institute for Real Estate
Construction and Housing (IIBW) of Vienna.
Read more in Spanish and in English
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‘Socialising the European Semester’. Social Platform publishes new report
Social Platform, the umbrella association of all Brussels-based social NGOs- Housing Europe is a member- published a report looking at how to socialise the European Semester process. The aim of this report is to highlight the need to improve the social priorities in the European Semester and therefore support the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, a commitment made by EU leaders in 2017 to deliver new and more effective social rights for citizens. The report gives evaluates the 2019 Semester process and makes recommendations for the upcoming 2020 cycle and possible future reforms of the Semester process, with regards to improving the balance of its thematic priorities and its design.
Find the full report here
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What the latest Eurostat figures tell us about the housing and marginalisation of low-income households
A Housing Europe Observatory Analysis
The latest round of EU ‘Survey of Income and Living Conditions’ (EU-SILC) data have recently been published by Eurostat, covering the 2018 period. The SILC figures indicate that the recent trend in ‘at risk of poverty or social exclusion’ rates has continued to edge down at an EU level; from 22.4 per cent in 2017 to 21.7 per cent. While the exact percentages vary wildly from country to country (e.g. 32.8 per cent in Bulgaria compared to just 12.2 per cent in Czechia), there is also a huge amount of variation at an EU level between different housing tenures. The 2018 figures show that just 9.3 per cent of mortgage holders in the EU are at risk of poverty. This compares to 20.1 per cent of outright owners, 32.9 per cent of those paying private market rents and a staggering 38.4 per cent of those renting at below market rates.
Read Dara Turnbull's article on our blog
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Down-to-earth collaboration in France and England for low-carbon, sustainable houses
Researchers in Normandy in France, South-West and Eastern England are updating a traditional house-building material to construct modern, energy-efficient homes using local materials. The CobBauge project is optimising the mixture of earth, plant fibres and water known as ‘cob’, or ‘bauge’ in French, while improving production and construction methods. The project predicts that the resulting houses will meet modern building regulations, produce 38 % less CO2 than traditionally made buildings and offer affordable, sustainable homes.
Read more about this year's European Commission Regiostars Awards winner
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Housing Europe Podcast now available across platforms
Responding to feedback we've received from our listeners we are happy to share that our podcast has now migrated to a new platform, Anchor, that allows you to access it using your service/app of preference to listen to.
Get a taste through one of the episodes available in our archive as we are working on the next ones...
More information
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Paving the way for a circular built environment. The Horizon 2020 'Drive0' project kicks off
With 3 days full of collaboration, close looks at practical examples and exchange around innovation, policy and future needs, the Horizon 2020 'Drive0' project kicked off last week in the Netherlands. Housing Europe is part of a diverse consortium that brings together truly excellent partners from the Academia, the corporate sector as well as practitioners in various aspects of the built environment.
Read more
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Public, cooperative and social housing providers, the brokers of Europe's Green New Deal
5 December, Brussels
The ambition bar has been set quite high when the new European Commission President shared her vision of “becoming the world’s first climate-neutral continent”. When presenting the lineup of Commissioners in September 2019, Ursula von der Leyen put the ‘Green New Deal’ at the top of the priority list in the new legislative period, highlighting that Vice-President Timmermans will be responsible to rollout this multi-layered strategic plan. Among other actions, Mr. Timmermans will have to propose “the first European Climate Law” within the new Commission’s first 100 days of office paving the way for the bloc’s commitment to go carbon-neutral by 2050.
Within this big picture that dominates the policymaking chambers in Brussels, Housing Europe aims to hold a first reality check that will prove why public, cooperative and social housing providers are in position to really broker Europe's Green New Deal. The upcoming Horizon 2020 HEART Workshop will provide answers to some practical questions that rise when measures are about to be implemented on the ground. In what ways can Smart Energy Renovation solutions be tailored to people’s needs? How can we “teach” a building to predict and adapt? And why is it key to develop projects with residents and not for them?
Housing Europe invites you to be part of a day during which technical and social innovation will meet the new Commission’s regulatory ambition. Join our debate with EU decision makers and be part of our hands-on workshops but also draw inspiration from a number of relevant initiatives from across Europe.
Find out more & save one of the last few seats
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HOUSEFUL: Circularity calls to action
The European project HOUSEFUL, Housing Europe is a partner, has released a video to invite key stakeholders in the housing sector to join a series of co-creation workshops. The video addresses three societal groups that are key to the housing sector: architects and construction companies, policy makers and citizens. It invites them to participate in a series of workshops organised by HOUSEFUL, where they will have the possibility to help the project develop more effective and replicable services aimed at increasing the circularity level of buildings.
Watch the video
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Homes4Life: Certification for ageing in place
A huge share of the building stock is not adapted to permit to older persons to age in place. Even today’s new constructions are often not prepared to support health and wellbeing over the life course. As a matter of fact, one in eight of Europeans over 65 declare that their house is not comfortably warm during winter. Demand for age-friendly homes exceeds supply by far: a European study estimates to 10 million the demand for age-friendly homes in the upcoming years across the continent.
Homes4Life addresses this challenge by contributing to the development of a new European certification scheme. The scheme will be based on an inspirational and realistic long-term vision of people’s needs and requirements in a holistic life-course approach and help develop better living environments integrating construction and digital solutions where this is beneficial.
Get more info about this really timely project watching their newly published 2-minute video
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Housing Europe Annual Conference & General Assembly 2020 (*)
4-5 June 2020 in Glasgow, Scotland
The annual international conference and the General Assembly of Housing Europe will take place in the first week of June 2020 in Scotland, hosted by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA).
More information will be available in our last e-mail to you for 2019.
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50 Out-of-the-Box Housing Solutions for the Locked Out
'Housing Solutions Platform' Event at the European Parliament, 11 December 2019
The Housing Solutions Platform has put together a collection of some of the most innovative and daring examples of housing solutions for the locked out in Europe thanks to the massive response to the Call that was launched in the beginning of the year.
The publication that will be officially presented at the European Parliament on December 11th aims to encourage different stakeholders to become more innovative in the provision of affordable housing solutions and to fill the gaps in existing systems.
Find out more & register to attend
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European Summer School for Early-Career Professionals 2020
Save the date: 29 June - 2 July 2020
What does the “climate crisis” mean for our housing stock? How can we build sustainable housing that supports the transition to a circular economy? What are the implications for affordability and for our tenants? These and many other questions will be discussed in the 2020 edition of the European Summer School.
Each year young and early-career housing professionals from all over Europe come to Bochum to address current challenges for the social housing sector with leading international academic and housing sector experts.
Read more
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"Tackling the global housing challenges: Housing cooperatives’ role in the provision of affordable housing"
6 December 2019, Zurich
This one-day international conference brings together a group of leading experts on cooperative housing. Drawing on their international experiences and insights, it will explore the current role, approaches and strategies of housing cooperatives in a selected number of countries. Speakers and the audience will openly debate the opportunities and challenges of replicating successful practices in different contexts.
Read more
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'Yes, we rent' UIA Learning Event
12 December, Mataró (Spain)
The City Council of Mataró and Tecnocampus Foundation, within the Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) project "Yes, We Rent!” founded by FEDER programme, organises a workshop to discuss the role of public administration promoting social rental housing.
The event will be presented by the Universitat de Barcelona professor in Housing Economics Montserrat Pareja-Eastaway. The keynote speech by Salvador Milà, will discuss how different tools can be implemented in housing policies to promote a social and affordable renting, considering the Catalan context. The Round Table brings together international experts including Joaquín de Santos of Community Land Trust in Brussels, a partner of Housing Europe, who will share their experience in promoting affordable housing and community empowerment.
More information & Link to register
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European Commission to introduce Build4People partnership
12 December 2019, Brussels
The European Commission has invited stakeholders to join a discussion on the establishment of the Build4People partnership; a research & innovation partnership on ‘people-centric sustainable built environment’ that will provide a cross-cluster structure, bringing together public and private sectors to create research and innovation pathways. The initiative shall be implemented under the Horizon Europe programme (2021-2027).
The kick off event takes place in Brussels on December 12th and will be also livestreamed.
Find out more
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