Housing Rights: A goal still out of reach
From Spain to the Netherlands; from Italy to Ireland and Portugal, people are taking to the streets to make their anger heard: housing prices are way too high.
According to Eurostat, between 2010 and 2023, the most vulnerable people spend over 40% of their income on rent in cities where inflation has eroded their purchasing power (+36%). House prices have gone up by 48% in the EU, especially in Estonia (+209%), Hungary (+191%) and Lithuania (+154%). Additionally, the rents have increased by 22% in 24 EU countries (e.g. Estonia +211%, Lithuania +169%, Ireland +98%).
This context probably explains why the re-elected President of the Commission Ursula von Leyen agreed to appoint a Commissioner for Energy and Housing, the Danish socialist Dan J⌀rgensen. Even though housing is not an EU competence, Mr. J⌀rgensen is expected to pave the way for supporting Member States to address structural drivers and unlocking public and private investment for affordable and sustainable housing, as stated in his mission letter.
Being this a severe problem that affects cities, we asked some local authorities from different EU countries and part of our network to shed some light on their local housing crisis to help us better advocate for their needs at the EU level.
Below you can learn more about the current housing situation in Verona (Italy), Budapest (Hungary), Lille and Nantes (France) and explore how these cities are striving to overcome the emergency.
A high demand for social housing impossible to satisfy
Verona is one of the most romantic tourist destinations in Italy, but it also hosts a university campus and is a well-known industrial and business area. It comes as no surprise that the demand for housing is high (2.215 requests in 2024) and the municipality cannot satisfy it. As in the nearby Venice, the historic center is full of tourist accommodations. Owners prefer short-term rentals because there aren’t specific regulations to comply with, profits are higher and taxation is lower than a long-term rent and, finally, tourists stay just a few days and keep the place clean. The few available apartments for long-term rent are too expensive for middle and low-income workers and students.
The real estate market of the wonderful Budapest has been cannibalised by tourist rentals, too. Like Verona, the municipality cannot meet the high demand. Certainly, it doesn’t help that housing prices and rents have increased significantly more than incomes over the past decade. Rents are higher here than in most cities across the Union. The offer is insufficient because most public housings were privatised in the early ‘90s. Furthermore, the government’s housing policy exclusively supports homeownership benefiting high-income families.
In the European Metropole of Lille (MEL), the number of building permits approved has dropped from 7.000 annually to only 5.000. Social housing approvals have halved due to the financial crisis and rising interest rates, while the demand for social housing has increased to 66.000 requests between 2019 and 2023. The metropole estimates that 6.200 new homes are needed in the metropolitan area per year.
Another French metropole, Nantes, needs 40.000 social units more. This housing crisis started at least 50 years ago, as the result of several factors: high loan interests, material and energy prices increase, and speculation on land worsened after the Covid-crisis.
Cities don’t receive enough funds for social housing
Sometimes, the lack of public funds can be alleviated by rich and generous citizens. As in Verona, where a private left an extensive inheritance of buildings from early ‘900 and lands to help people in need and NGOs. Almost all the city’s properties require renovation because too old (buildings of the ’60-‘70s) and in poor condition. Even though Verona is adding 1.5 million euros to its budget for the sustainable refurbishment of currently vacant apartments, this amount will cover only 200 out of the 4/500 apartments in need. A public-private partnership is essential to overcome the lack of public funds.
The fight between the EU and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for the ongoing breach of the rule of law has concrete consequences. For example, the ambitious housing programme planned by Budapest’s municipality relied on the EU structural funds that are now frozen, forcing local authorities to downsize their plans. As a consequence, there are no public buildings under construction. The municipality has set up a housing agency, but EU funds are essential for its extension. Moreover, the unaffordable Budapest real estate market has forced a lot of citizens to move to suburban areas. This shift is causing an unsustainable demand for transportation infrastructure, thus worsening the environmental burden and associated public health issues.
The French example: Better housing without expanding the urban area
However, local authorities can no longer expand their urban areas indefinitely to build, as they risk lengthening transport distances, increasing energy and materials consumption, and leaving no room for nature and farmland. Therefore, as part of the French Zero Net Land Take regulation, the Préfect of the Region of Lille (Hauts-de-France) has allocated 700 ha for urbanisation in the next 10 years, with 400 ha for housing.
Some people use the Net Zero Land take rules as a scapegoat saying we cannot build anymore. But the roots of the problems are not there: the housing crisis has been growing for 50 years and the Net Zero Land take rules are only very recent […] In the last 60 years, we have increased the population by 70% while urban sprawl has grown by 234% – Tristan Riom, Vice-President of the Nantes Metropolitan Council
To limit property speculation, the Metropole of Lille and Nantes are experimenting with a community land trust approach where a nonprofit organisation acquires and manages land to create affordable and community-led housing. Nantes has increased its social housing funding by 30% and allocated €60 million to buy new land to build social housing with this innovative approach.
Converting vacant buildings into energy-efficient apartments
A promising resource-wise solution to tackle the housing crisis is to turn vacant spaces into apartments. In the Metropole of Lille, there are 9.000 vacant private properties, enough to satisfy the demand only for 1.5 years. The local authorities are working to reintegrate these properties into the affordable housing market. Moreover, the metropole, along with Dutch, German and Belgian partners, is one of the winners of Interreg North West Project 2024 with Circular Building Convert whose aim is to turn vacant offices into new homes.
Verona checks if a restoration is sustainable encouraging cross-departmental work before building new structures. For example, a former military barracks has been transformed into a university campus, while the Next Generation EU co-funded project Forte Santa Caterina will replace an old military storage with 20 energy-efficient units for the most vulnerable categories and a park.
One of the projects that Budapest is carrying out is converting an old school into a future and climate-proof public estate. The Climate Department and the newly established Budapest Climate Agency ensure that the maintenance and cost of living are low and manageable. At the same time, the municipality has started designing a new pilot project Green Panel Building Programme, that will see the city double the commitment of the energy districts and renew a couple of thousand apartments for people with a low chance of getting financed. The hope is to scale up the programme for the whole city.
The cultural shift that we need
The Metropole of Lille is testing an innovative housing solution: the collective housing projects. 10 projects on collective living, shared spaces, and community solidarity are under development but face cultural resistance.
According to Eurostat, in the EU in 2023, a third of the population lived in an under-occupied home. These are mostly older people who live in big houses even after their sons/daughters have left the family nest.
The Metropole of Lille is trying to drive a cultural change by supporting older residents to downsize and freeing up family homes with social housing companies.
In Budapest, we have strategies to address both the housing crisis and the climate crisis, and we have the administrative capacity by newly established agencies to efficiently channel funding to support a socially just climate transition. However, to deliver on these strategies, we need targeted EU funds to reach cities directly – both in the coming years, aligned with the priorities of the new Commission, and in the next post-2027 EU budget, which is currently under preparation. – Gergely Karácsony, Mayor of Budapest
Commissioner J⌀rgensen, help cities to make their voice heard by local governments!
All cities appreciated that a Commissioner for Housing has finally been appointed. What do they ask for? Funds, obviously, but not only.
The example of Budapest proves that without EU money, it is even more difficult to fulfill the housing right and impossible to achieve the ambitious, as much as needed, climate neutrality. The Hungarian capital highlights how more funds for social housing and affordable rentals can help fight homelessness, which is the goal of a few European Parliament resolutions.
The Metropole of Lille asks Mr. J⌀rgensen to focus on social housing for very low-income people, solutions to support their efforts to combat property vacancy and large-scale social housing renovation, while Verona hopes that the Commissioner will put pressure on Member States. Indeed, the main Italian cities want to share with him the same letter they sent to the government asking in vain for a meeting to discuss their proposals to tackle the housing crisis. Among other things, they ask for the free allocation of unused properties to municipalities, the refinancing of rental, funds to aid vulnerable groups and regulation of tourism platforms.
Fighting for the housing right
At Energy Cities we know how urgent it is to tackle this problem. To respect the planet’s boundaries while allowing the most vulnerable ones to live in future-proof places, we think that the solution is to implement sufficiency measures such as efficient renovation of vacant housing, co-housing, retrofitting existing buildings, and wise land use. Indeed, as we have seen, the housing crisis is closely linked to socio-economic and energy issues, as well as to urban planning and land preservation.
We need to reduce our land consumption. We need to change the way the city is built. Architects have been taught that to build housing you take a potato land and build a new house. We cannot do that anymore – Tristan Riom, Vice president of Nantes Metropole.
Stay tuned for more cities’ stories and to follow our advocacy work addressing the housing crisis.
This article has been written thanks to the contribution of:
Luisa Ceni, Councillor for Social and Housing Policies, the Third Sector, and the Social Territorial Area, Municipality of Verona
Ada Ámon, Executive Director, Budapest Climate Agency
Bálint Misetics, Senior Advisor to the Mayor on Housing and Social Policy, Municipality of Budapest
Guillemette Lescure, Director of PLH (Programme Local de l’Habitat), Métropole Européenne de Lille
Tristan Riom, Vice president of Nantes Metropole
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Fuente: ENERGY CITIES
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