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Affordable housing: Can we learn from other countries?
Presentation by Darinka Czischke and Jen Pearce
Building and Social Housing Foundation
Joint Centre for Comparative Housing Research / Chartered Institute of Housing East Midlands
Annual Seminar
2 July 2013
Social housing in the EU
• No unique definition
• Wide diversity of tenures,
sizes, types of providers,
allocation criteria…
• Dominant form of
provision in EU/EEA: social
rental housing
Social housing systems in NW Europe
‘Public’ providers
‘Private’ providers
L.A. Public law
bodies
Private law entities (civil or business), non profit Coop For-profit
Assoc Coop Companies/societies Other
Public owners Private or mixed owners
AT * * * * *
BE * * *
DE * *
DK * * *
ES * *
FI * * * *
FR * * *
IE * * *
IT * * * *
NL * Found
PT * * NGOs *
UK * * * * * *
Types of social housing providers in the EU
Emerging trends in provision
• Increasing tenure segmentation (residualisation)
• Growing supply gap between targeted social housing and home-ownership
• Emergence of civil society-driven initiatives
Examples from Western Europe
• Austria: Limited-profit companies
• Nordic cooperative model
• Finland : Right to occupancy
• Germany: Co-housing, self-help housing, etc.
Austrian ‘limited profit companies’ • 22.5 % of primary residences in Austria
• Strong, continuous support for supply-side subsidy
• Stable housing market and modest house price rises
• Cost rent
• Facilitative land policy
• Structured financial arrangements
• Strong legislative framework
• Core features and social task retained throughout 1990s
Nordic housing cooperatives
• Consumer cooperative mutually owned by members, in accordance with Cooperative Principles and Values
• Jointly owned and democratically controlled by members: “one person, one vote”
• Alternative to traditional, municipally owned real estate management
• No use of municipal funds – the cooperative tenancy association becomes self-sufficient
• Profits re-invested in the coop
Housing cooperatives: Sweden
• Members (bostadsrättsförening) formally own the right (bostadsrätt) to inhabit their apartment for an unlimited time
• Right can be traded on the open market
• One of the main forms of home ownership in the country: 17% of total housing stock in Sweden
• Membership of a housing cooperative generally held to be the same thing as owning (as opposed to renting)
Right to occupancy: Finland • Loan from the Housing Fund of
Finland (ARA) of 85% • Purchaser pays 15% of total price • Monthly charge similar to rent • Same security of tenure as home-
ownership • Non-redeemable • Payment is returned after 3
months’ notice • Can be endorsed to / inherited by
child or parents living in the same household
• Allocation through waiting lists
Self-Help Housing
“Self-help housing involves groups of local
people bringing back into use empty properties that
are in limbo, awaiting decisions about their future use, or their
redevelopment”
Self-Help Housing
• Different models; different aims: – Affordability
– Homelessness
– Employment
• Success factors – People
– Property
– Partnership
– Viable finance
Self-Help Housing in Germany
• Berlin – 5000 flats refurbished
• Leipzig – Home-steading programme for
empty flats – Public funding – Security of tenure
• Freiburg – Factories and barracks
transformed into attractive neighbourhoods
• Partnerships with municipalities key
Community Land Trusts • Five central principles
– Community-controlled and community-owned
– Open democratic structure
– Permanently affordable housing
– Not for profit
– Long-term stewardship
• Range of financing models – Funding
– Investment
– Low cost land
Champlain Housing Trust
• Established in Burlington, Vermont in 1984
• Affordable to households on 57% of local median income
• 2,200 properties for rent and LCHO
• Resale formula to share equity
• Pioneers: now 200 trusts throughout the USA
Core elements
• Stable institutional and financial framework (Austrian LPC’s)
• Meeting a wide range of objectives (Nordic coops)
• Flexibility (Right to occupancy)
• Citizen’s engagement (self-help housing; CLTs)
Conclusions
• Much to be learnt from other contexts
• Need to think beyond traditional models of provision
• Need to be careful about how we transfer: recognition of context
World Habitat Awards
• International award run by BSHF on behalf of UN Habitat since 1985
• Identifying good practice
• Guiding principles: innovation, sustainability, transfer
