Housing Europe

21/05/2026

While the Responsible Housing Finance group meets in Budapest, our Communications Director Diana Yordanova sat down with MEP Irene Tinagli at the European Parliament to ask how the EU’s next 7-year budget can help ease the housing crisis Europe is facing.

Housing Europe has been calling for €100 billion for public, cooperative, and social housing in the EU’s next long-term budget because the numbers no longer add up for housing providers in Europe. Renovating ageing buildings has become significantly more expensive in recent years, from construction materials and labour costs to the new energy efficiency standards Europe rightly wants to achieve.

Demand for affordable housing keeps rising in every Member State, leaving providers under pressure to both renovate existing homes and build new ones at scale.

We estimate that €100 billion would still cover only around one-fifth of the sector’s additional investment needs, but it would send a strong signal that Europe is ready to treat housing as the defining social challenge it has become.

19/05/2026

Europe’s housing crisis may be shared, but housing systems differ across the continent. How can we design governance systems that maximise the absorption of EU funds by the public, cooperative, and social housing sector?

On 21 May in Budapest, Housing Europe, MR Housing Fund and the Metropolitan Research Institute - Városkutatás Kft will bring together during a workshop housing providers, public authorities, financial institutions and experts to discuss a timely question: how can European housing ambitions translate into practical solutions at local level?

The workshop takes place at an important moment. As the Recovery and Resilience Facility comes to an end and discussions advance around the next EU budget cycle (MFF 2028–2034), housing is moving higher on the European agenda through initiatives such as the European Affordable Housing Plan and the upcoming Pan-European Investment Platform.

But the discussion is no longer only about whether funding exists.

As Sorcha Edwards, Europe’s Secretary General, recently stressed, the challenge is also to “get the investment right”: creating financing and governance systems that can deliver long-term affordability, support sustainable neighbourhoods, and avoid speculative dynamics.

Drawing on the findings of hashtag , the Budapest workshop will explore how different countries structure affordable housing systems through the interaction of:
🔹governance,
🔹finance,
🔹land,
🔹and sustainability frameworks.

Hungary offers an important perspective for this exchange. While homeownership remains dominant, new initiatives such as the MR Housing Fund are contributing to the development of the social and affordable rental sector and raising broader questions around investment capacity, institutional frameworks, and long-term housing delivery.

The discussions will focus on practical questions:
🔹What governance and financing models actually work in practice?
🔹What can realistically be adapted to different national and local contexts?
🔹How can municipalities and housing providers prepare for emerging EU investment opportunities?
🔹And how can European-level tools effectively support housing delivery on the ground?

The workshop is organised as part of Housing Europe’s European Responsible Housing Finance Working Group, launched in 2023 to strengthen peer learning, investment capacity and exchange on sustainable housing finance systems across Europe.

Photo credit: MR Közösségi Lakásalap

11/05/2026

For 100 years, the tenants’ movement, International Union of Tenants (IUT) has defended a fundamental idea that housing is not a commodity like any other.

What is interesting is that two forces that are often presented separately can, in reality, only evolve together. On one side, the representation and protection of tenants and workers. On the other, the capacity to provide concrete truly affordable housing solutions at scale. The history of social housing shows that progress happens when both dimensions reinforce each other.

This is why the relationship between tenants’ organisations and social housing providers matters so much. Few actors have been as consistently aligned with tenants’ interests as social and public housing providers. Not because there were never tensions, but because over decades they built something more valuable called structured cooperation, continuous dialogue, and the ability to improve systems through negotiation rather than confrontation alone. Both sides want to listen to each other, and this is not a given in housing provision.

As our President Marco Corradi said during the celebration of IUT in Sweden, "For one hundred years, our idea of housing—yours as a union, ours as a social housing system—has been rooted in people’s real needs. Needs that evolve over time. Today, we are called to profoundly redefine this idea, as we face a historical turning point comparable in scale and complexity to the major transformations of the past."

The most resilient housing systems emerged where organised tenants, public authorities, and mission-driven housing providers learnt how to work together.
At a moment when housing is increasingly financialised and disconnected from social realities, that lesson deserves renewed attention.

23/04/2026

In a time marked by wars on the continent, rising living costs and growing social tension, housing policy sits at the centre of Europe’s social contract.

It is against this backdrop that Housing Europe’s Annual Conference will gather housing leaders, policymakers and practitioners on 5 June (9:30–13:00) in Trieste, Italy to explore how Europe can build better housing systems by learning from one another.

Organised by the voice of public, cooperative, and social housing providers, Housing Europe in close collaboration with the Italian public housing federation, Federcasa, and the country’s oldest public housing authority, Ater Trieste, the event will focus on practical solutions that can travel across borders, from West to East and back again, while addressing the structural imbalances that continue to shape housing systems across Europe.

Public, cooperative, and social housing leaders are already working together on how to rebuild housing in Ukraine, exploring ways to establish revolving funds for sustainable investment, and sharing strategies to bring vacant homes back into use and to boost inclusion and quality of life in neighbourhoods. These exchanges reveal that Europe’s housing future will increasingly depend on shared knowledge, solidarity and cooperation.

If Europe is to respond to the housing crisis, it will need more than plans and programmes, it will require leadership, hope and the determination to do better and faster with a 💜 social heart.

Register and be with us.
https://www.housingeurope.eu/evenement/from-west-to-east-building-a-brighter-housing-future-annual-conference/

02/04/2026

Understand French social housing from people on the ground

Several countries have developed robust policy and financial mechanisms to regulate housing markets and ensure access to affordable, secure homes.
France stands out with a highly structured system that combines public oversight with long-term financing tools.

Register for the conference of French Social Housing Union [L'Union sociale pour l'habitat] organised with the support of Housing Europe on April 20 (14:30-18:30) at the Permanent Representation of France in the EU.

https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/HFeUwE43nD

We will offer first-hand insights into how these mechanisms work in practice. It will spotlight concrete models such as the Livret A savings scheme, which mobilises regulated household savings to finance social housing at scale, and the French financing ecosystem that channels funds from the European Investment Bank and the Caisse des Dépôts into sustainable, mission-oriented housing providers who have been housing people in need for decades.

By unpacking how these instruments operate - who finances, who builds, and who benefits - the discussion will draw practical lessons for shaping a stronger European approach to housing investment and policy.

10/03/2026

To be or not to be a New Housing Paradigm?

Today, in the early afternoon, the European Parliament will vote on its report that aims to propose solutions for decent, sustainable, and affordable housing which will feed the first EU plan.

The HOUS Committee has described its approach as pragmatic. Pragmatism requires clear incentives and accountability. Where public funds support supply, long-term affordability must be secured. Where developers benefit from subsidies or guarantees, reinvestment and affordability commitments should follow.

The test is simple. Will this report tilt the balance towards homes as a social infrastructure, or leave the field tilted towards housing as a financial asset?

Pragmatism demands that we choose the former.

24/02/2026

Four years ago, Ukraine’s housing stock entered a new chapter of devastation, as Russia's war began tearing through homes, streets and entire neighbourhoods.

Four years in which an already fragile housing system started being demolished, home after home, neighbourhood after neighbourhood.

Even before the war, Ukraine’s formal social housing sector was extremely small, comprising around 1,100 social units and 2,000 temporary units nationwide. These homes were managed by municipalities, rented at symbolic levels and operated without a cost-recovery logic. There was no dedicated class of social housing providers and no institutionalised public or non-profit rental sector. Owner cooperatives existed, but largely as maintenance structures rather than limited-profit developers.

When destruction came, there was no resilient public housing backbone to absorb the shock.

By October 2025, when Housing Europe launched our "State of Housing in Europe" report, around 2.5 million housing units, 13% of the country’s stock, had been damaged or destroyed. Reconstruction needs were estimated at €72 billion, while national budget allocations covered only a fraction of that amount.

At the same time, 4.6 million people remained internally displaced. Many rely on precarious private rentals, temporary accommodation or shared housing, and nearly four in ten report needing support to pay rent.

This is a system-building challenge.

Rebuilding Ukraine’s housing sector cannot mean simply replacing what was lost, it requires clear legal definitions of social and municipal housing, sustainable rent-setting mechanisms that allow for reinvestment, permanent financing tools at national and municipal level, and guaranteed access to land for public and non-profit developers.

It requires stronger tenant protections, improved municipal capacity and modern housing data systems. It requires translating constitutional housing rights into functioning, contemporary housing law.

The European Union has an important role to play.

In 2025, the European Investment Bank approved a €200 million Social Housing Reconstruction loan to support publicly owned affordable rental housing and to help establish an institutional framework aligned with EU standards. Through advisory support such as JASPERS, institutional capacity and compliance with European social and infrastructure norms are being strengthened.

Four years on, the destruction is visible.

🇺🇦 The deeper question is whether reconstruction will merely restore what existed before, or whether it will lay the foundations for a new housing paradigm in Ukraine.

Read the country profile of Ukraine at our "State of Housing in Europe" report - https://www.housingeurope.eu/state-of-housing-in-europe-2025-trends-in-a-nutshell/

23/02/2026

Europe says it wants affordable housing but we also continue to build homes as if every household must own a car.

Mandatory parking requirements with often one 🚗 space per dwelling are inflating construction costs and locking in car dependency. Underground parking can account for up to 20% of total development costs. That’s capital diverted away from delivering and renovating affordable homes.

At the same time, households are squeezed by transport costs. If we measure affordability honestly — rent + energy + mobility — the picture changes. Sustainable mobility becomes one of the powerful tools to reduce the cost of living.

Walking, cycling, public transport, shared cars or scooters are also affordability measures. 🚶‍♀️‍➡️ 🚲 🚌 🛵

EU policy is moving in this direction. The European Parliament’s report on the housing crisis, the transposition of the EPBD by May 2026 with a part on smart mobility, the Social Climate Fund and the New European Bauhaus all recognise that decarbonising living environments requires rethinking mobility.

Structural barriers remain, such as car-oriented parking norms, rigid building codes, planning systems that prioritise vehicles over homes.

Across the North Sea Region, cities are already rewriting the rules. Through the Interreg SHARE-North Squared project, Bremen, Helsingborg, Stavanger, Utrecht, Aarhus and Mechelen are reforming parking bylaws and embedding shared mobility into public, cooperative, and social housing.

On 5 March 2026 (11:00–13:00 CET) at the European Parliament (Spinelli 3G2), Housing Europe will convene policymakers, cities and housing providers to discuss how smarter mobility policy can unlock affordable and climate-resilient housing supply.

We will be kindly hosted by MEP Marcos Ros Sempere (S&D, Spain), as part of the European Urban Forum.

Book your seat and join the debate.

Private fuel-based vehicles are a major source of emissions, pollution and land take in cities, especially in peripheral areas. Meanwhile, public cooperative, and social housing providers face high costs to build parking spaces that are often under-used as well as rigid parking requirements to prior...

12/02/2026

The Parliament has its own plan against the housing crisis. In it we saw progress for public, cooperative, and social housing, but key safeguards are still missing.

👍 Its non-binding report marks political progress.

MEPs strengthened recognition of public, social, cooperative and limited-profit housing and they frame housing as a structural socioeconomic issue rather than a marginal market distortion.

They supported reinforcing InvestEU, expanding EU-backed guarantees and redirecting unused Recovery and Resilience Facility funds towards housing investment.

There is also pressure on the European Investment Bank to improve transparency around its instruments and eligibility rules, amid concerns that smaller public and cooperative providers struggle to access EU-backed finance.

Across funding tools, momentum is visible.

😈 However, the devil is in the details and several structural issues remain open.

🚩 The report states that public housing investment must remain consistent with EU fiscal rules. While this does not formally block investment, highly indebted Member States will face significant difficulty creating fiscal space for large-scale housing programmes,” Sorcha Edwards, Secretary-General of Housing Europe highlighted.

Strong conditionality ensuring long-term affordability is not yet embedded in EU and EIB financing.

The role of listed real estate companies remains insufficiently defined, raising questions about how profit-maximisation models align with durable affordability objectives. Securitisation is encouraged, but without clear social safeguards.

Now, the HOUS must go on.

“The HOUS Committee has built up relationships, expertise and working methods that are essential at this stage,” Housing Europe's President, Marco Corradi insisted. “Bringing its mandate to an end now would disperse valuable institutional knowledge precisely when the implementation of the European Housing Plan requires coordination and political stability.”

Read our take: https://tinyurl.com/5n8m5z58

🗳️ As the plenary vote approaches in March, the details will determine whether the EU’s housing ambition translates into long-lasting affordability for current and future generations.

The underlying question persists: will Europe treat housing as social infrastructure or continue to tilt towards housing as a financial asset?

The direction is promising but safeguards will make the difference.

04/02/2026

Housing is one of the most tangible ways people experience Europe and it is essential to push policy in the right direction while being able to recognise 🦊 “the fox”.

If the European Parliament is serious about decent, sustainable and affordable housing, it has to confront a proven truth in its report to be voted this March.

🚩 Focusing on supply alone, especially with EU public money, carries real risks.

Building more homes is necessary, but not sufficient to fix the crisis. When public funding is used without strong conditions, problems tend to emerge.

🚩Red flag #1 Speculation and windfall profits - if EU money flows to private actors without safeguards, we effectively de-risk private investment but gains are captured privately.

🚩Red flag #2 Affordability leakage - homes labelled “affordable” by the private market can be sold, refinanced or re-let at speculative market prices tomorrow. In fast-growing cities, public subsidies can end up fueling housing inflation, not long-term affordability.

🚩Red flag #3 Short policy memory - without ensuring affordability, the EU and governments can find themselves back at square one within 20 years - new shortages, higher prices, and another round of emergency funding.

The real question is “How many homes under what rules?"

To ensure EU-funded housing remains affordable for decades, not electoral cycles, affordability must be locked in structurally, not assumed.

🔐 This means EU funding should be conditional on long-term affordability clauses, preventing speculative resale once public funding has been used.

Here is a single thing to remember:

Capital gains must be reinvested in affordable housing again, and again, and again. We call this a closed circuit or revolving funds.

Otherwise... if conditions are breached, public funds should be recoverable.