Affordable Housing in Europe 

Sorcha Edwards, Secretary-General of Housing Europe, discusses housing crisis and potential solutions 

The housing crisis in Europe is a multifaceted issue that requires a nuanced understanding of the obstacles faced by local authorities and housing providers. As highlighted by experts, the slow planning process, fragmented ownership, and bureaucratic delays in securing planning permissions are significant hurdles that need to be addressed.  

Listening to the experiences of local authorities and housing providers is crucial to identifying solutions that can reduce waiting lists and make housing more affordable for Europeans.  

In this interview for REVOLVE, Sorcha Edwards, Secretary-General of Housing Europe, the European Federation of Public, Cooperative and Social Housing, discusses the housing crisis in Europe, the impact of such crisis on mental health and initiatives to try to change the scenario and improve the living conditions of the population. 

Thanks for this question. So, as you know, I’m working for Housing Europe, and we are constantly in touch with different housing providers around Europe, so they could be public and cooperative social housing providers. And I think what we really have to do, what we try to do in Housing Europe, is really listen to each of those organizations and hear what are their actual obstacles at local level? What is stopping them from being able to meet the need at local level?  

We will very often see that there are different reasons. So, very often there is a very slow planning process, so delays in freeing up sites for a new delivery of homes. There are complications around planning permission of the transformation, let’s say, of offices to homes because of the fragmented ownership of offices, for instance.  

For the layperson on the street, we see a lot of potential. But I think to really understand why we have this crisis now; we really have to listen to those local authorities and local housing providers to hear. How could we make their job easier? And how could we help them to reduce the waiting lists and reduce the prices of homes for Europeans that we are seeing now? 

Indeed. What latest Eurostat figures have shown indeed is that some 40% of people in the EU who rely on the private rental sector for their accommodation, are living in fear of losing their home. So obviously the impact for economic reasons.  

The impact of this instability on mental health is critical. But of course, there’s also the aspect if we think about the aging population, and 80% of our homes are not fit for people to be able to age in a dignified way in their own home.  

So again, the implications of that for a healthy society. At the same time, we see a growing difficulty for students, for young people, to actually move out of their family home and get on with their lives, so whether that’s accessing employment or education.  

40% of people in the EU who rely on the private rental sector for their accommodation, are living in fear of losing their home.

We have an infantilisation of young people in Europe who cannot become an active part of society due to the lack of affordable accommodation. We also linked to the topic here today at the EUSEW 2024, and lack of adequate housing. So that could be linked to housing, which is not at an adequate temperature, whether that is too warm in summer, too cold in winter, and obviously that impedes our capacity to have an active life. 

I think what we do need at European level is a recognition that having healthy housing, affordable housing, districts where people can reach, really reach their full potential, I think it would really help us achieve many of the goals that we have at EU level, whether that is a competitive society where all can be economically active, whether that is an inclusive society where also people with disabilities can play an active role, and whether that is the energy transition.  

Our housing sectors are not really serving society and not fast enough.

All the objectives we have at EU level, in some ways, there is a little obstacle in the way, and that is the fact that our housing sectors are not really serving society and not fast enough. There’s a lot of action in terms of greening our homes, but it’s not as fast as we need it to be.  

So, I think this is what we need at the EU level. This recognition that actually if we enable local level, national level, if we give them more capacity, more funding, to have housing systems that actually meet society’s needs, then we actually also will help us reach our EU goals.

Yes, I think indeed, the cooperative movement is a very old one in Europe. I think it’s one we can be proud of that has existed for over 100 years. There’s still many of them that are going strong in many member states. But what we actually find very inspiring recently is the Sostre Cívic project, which is now sprouting up in Catalonia.  

That is a right-of-use cooperative. They’re rental cooperatives managed in a co-creation style, inspired indeed by the Swiss and German model to provide long-term affordable rental housing.  

We just need the right ecosystem, the right financial regulatory ecosystem to allow those projects to scale up and to get more of them. 

But actually, we are very lucky that we see many very inspiring examples, also public housing providers, municipal housing companies, limited profit housing providers, which are the predominant ones, for instance, in Denmark or Austria or Netherlands, also doing amazing work on the energy transition, but also just keeping prices affordable and making districts attractive.  

We see the potential. We see some excellent inspiration out there, but we just need the right ecosystem, the right financial regulatory ecosystem to allow those projects to scale up and to get more of them. 

Yes, we do see much satisfaction and very often it’s not the CO₂ that is mentioned, but increased comforts of homes, lower bills of course, lower energy bills – increased satisfaction. But what we also see in many of the projects also those that we are working on under the affordable housing initiative is that when we have a renovation that actually goes to district level.  

We see increase in well-being and increase in possibilities for tenants living in neighbourhoods.

So that improves also the common spaces, improves also access to let’s say green spaces around the homes. We see increase in well-being and increase in possibilities for tenants living in neighbourhoods.  

This is why we really see an opportunity for this energy transition not to be limited to just the individual performance of individual homes, but a transition also to a more inclusive and more active society.