The need for good quality, affordable social housing is undeniable. World Habitat supports the steps outlined in Housing Europe’s Manifesto to Lead the Way out of the Housing Crisis which calls for more affordable housing, and a reduction in the carbon footprint of European residential stock. We need governments to provide more energy-efficient social homes, and quickly. 

But there is a danger of putting all our eggs in one basket. A sole focus on building from scratch saddles us with the burden of embodied carbon (carbon emissions associated with materials and construction) of new buildings, as well as that of the demolished or neglected existing housing. Then there is the issue of urgency: new social housing is being delivered at a much slower pace than existing demand, and that demand is increasing rapidly. Recent figures from the National Housing Federation in the UK state that more than 140,000 children are currently living in temporary accommodation, more than ever on record.  

But what if we could provide permanent housing for those in need, while also minimising damage to the environment?  

Reviving old or unused buildings by renovating and retrofitting them can deliver cost-effective and sustainable social homes. Whilst it can’t replace the need for new housing, it can create more homes, on a lower budget in a shorter timeframe than building new. And by using what we already have (and the embodied carbon we have already ‘paid’ for) this process can play a crucial role in decarbonising the housing sector – a sector responsible for 18% of the world’s carbon emissions according to the World Economic Forum. 

Renovation and retrofits offer a win-win for everyone involved. Social housing tenants, often more vulnerable to fuel poverty and health issues, benefit from energy-efficient homes that are warm, healthy, and affordable. Social housing providers improve their assets, lower costs and have healthier tenants. National and local governments also gain, making strides towards their net-zero targets by saving on embodied carbon (the amount of carbon emitted during the construction of a building) and operational carbon (the carbon emitted to run the household). 

Working together to revive social housing 

Through the World Habitat Awards, we have seen plentiful examples of good-quality, affordable and climate-responsible social housing. Whether it’s renovating vacant buildings or reviving homes in disrepair, there is a common thread that runs through them: successful projects bring together communities, social housing providers, architects, designers, and engineers. Together, they can breathe new life into existing structures, protect buildings of architectural and social importance, and create thriving spaces for residents.  

This collaborative approach is exemplified by the renovation of the Casa Bloc in Barcelona. The building, which has huge cultural significance, was built in 1933 as an innovative social project by eminent architects of the time, Josep Lluís Sert and Josep Torres Clavé.  Eighty years later, in a state of disrepair, the Government of Catalonia leased the building to non-profit organisation Habitat3 for its new social housing project. The renovation transformed two floors of the block into 17 homes for people on the lowest incomes, at risk of social exclusion. Habitat3 worked in partnership with local government, social housing providers and a range of non-profit organisations to complete the renovations, which included high-tech solutions to combat fuel poverty and digital exclusion.  

Nettelbeckplatz estate in Berlin, a 2024 World Habitat Award winner, is another exciting renovation which brings more affordable housing options to the capital city. The complex’s owner, Cooperative Housing Organisation ‘1892’, collaborated with architects and residents to preserve the iconic 1970s landmark, prioritising social and environmental concerns. Choosing to renovate rather than rebuild, meant that the existing tenants (70% of them living there since the 1970s) were able to stay in the building throughout the works.  The completed project offers plenty of energy-efficient, affordable housing options for people often marginalised or priced out of the housing market. Before the renovation, there were 170 apartments, but with the amplification and renovation, another 40 dwellings plus 8 student apartments and 10 accessible apartments for the elderly were added.

Solar panels on the roof of Nettelbeckplatz, Berlin

Another World Habitat Award winner, not-for-profit homelessness organisation From Streets to Homes Association (Utcából Lakásba Egyesület or ULE) in Budapest runs a social housing programme, renovating empty properties to deliver affordable rental homes for people on low incomes and experiencing homelessness. The municipality provides buildings in disrepair, and ULE manages the leases, the works (often training future residents in renovation skills), and wider support for tenants. The programme is based on a Housing First approach but adapted to a Hungarian context, in which street homelessness is criminalised and there is no functioning welfare state. With a lack of economic resources and political will to build new social housing stock, renovation offers a way forward.  

Renovating social housing in Budapest by Utcáról Lakásba Egyesület

To retrofit or not to retrofit 

Arguments for and against retrofitting are well established: Retrofitting (the practice of bringing older homes up to modern standards of thermal efficiency) avoids squandering embodied carbon, but can be complex, expensive and time-consuming, so many social housing providers choose to build energy-efficient homes from scratch. The problem with this is that we do not have the land, money, resources or carbon budget to build all the homes we need.  

However, we are entering a new era of net-zero retrofits that are economically viable for housing providers to install at scale, which reduce planning application processes and take just days to complete, with minimal disruption to tenants. 

This year’s gold Award winner Energiesprong is one such solution. It uses prefabricated insulated wall and roof panels and a range of smart green technologies, including heat pumps and solar panels. The pre-made panels are attached directly to the existing building, speeding up the construction process and minimising disruption for residents. The retrofits take a maximum of 10 days and achieve a 70-80% reduction in the building’s energy use.  

To date, Energiesprong Global Alliance has completed over 10,000 net-zero retrofits across Europe and North America. Residents are involved in every part of the process, from attending community meetings and workshops, to participating in decision-making, to ensure the retrofit meets their specific needs and creates comfortable homes that are easy to live in. But also, for housing providers, the retrofits are almost entirely funded by long-term savings on energy costs, a benefit that new builds can’t offer. Energiesprong also works with its partners to improve the political landscape helping to drive support for these kinds of projects.   

Energiesprong retrofit in Arnhem, Netherlands

By considering renovation and retrofitting alongside well-planned new builds, we can construct a future for social housing that’s not just sustainable but also empowering. We can create communities where residents thrive in healthy, energy-efficient homes, where architects, designers and residents collaborate, and where social housing providers become leaders in climate action. This vision is achievable, but it requires a collective effort. Governments must incentivise, social housing providers must innovate and communities must participate in shaping decent, affordable housing. By reviving what we already have, we can build a brighter future for social housing and the planet. 

If you would like to find out more about proven retrofitting and renovating approaches, contact us today. Or sign up for our monthly newsletter.

The post Reviving, Not Just Building: Better social housing and a fairer transition to a clean energy future. appeared first on World Habitat.

*This article was first published in Spanish on the EcoHabitar website.

At World Habitat, we champion excellent housing solutions. We celebrate diversity in approaches, from grassroots-led projects to large-scale government initiatives, fostering inspiration and the transfer of knowledge and experience. World Habitat Awards winners demonstrate how decent housing is the foundation for a dignified life and can positively impact both the environment and society. We proudly amplify their voices on the global stage.

However, environmentally sustainable housing is fighting persistent and damaging myths. The World Habitat Awards, run in partnership with UN-Habitat, provide useful examples that contradict some of these misconceptions.

By highlighting the sustainable features of some recent winners, I hope to illustrate just how successful environmentally responsible construction can be…

Myth: “Sustainable homes are only for rich people”

World Habitat’s view: Whilst there are thousands of ‘green’ housing developments targeted at high-income households or investors, we see plenty of projects that are both ecologically sound and affordable. Cohousing projects, where residents design their homes as a collective and build for an environmentally friendly lifestyle, tend to fit this bill.

For example, our 2023 bronze winner MasCoop, a resident’s cooperative in Southwest France. This cohousing project, composed of 11 households, aimed to create healthy and environmentally friendly homes, with generous indoor and outdoor common spaces. The homes are run by the cooperative and nine of them are considered affordable for those on low incomes. The coop’s regulations mean that it is not possible to profit from the sale of a residence, ensuring that these excellent quality homes will remain permanently affordable.

Bioclimatic Design

The development’s bioclimatic design was accredited with a “NoWatt” label, for exceeding environmental requirements. The buildings’ structure is made of wood, with walls of raw earth bricks covered with earth plaster, and insulation is based on wood wool and cellulose wadding.

Residents helped to build some aspects and have created an eco-friendly culture, opting for greener transport, reduced water consumption, sustainable cooking practices, gardening, etc. This ambitious low-carbon housing project attracted 85.000€ of public subsidies from the Occitanie region, which helped to reduce costs for the residents.

Mas Coop, 2023 Bronze winner

Regenerating Housing

Another example is this year’s Silver winner, La Ciguë. Members of La Ciguë run this housing cooperative for students, founded in 1986 in Geneva, Switzerland. It rents empty flats from private and commercial owners and in turn, offers them to its members at an affordable price.

Over the years the cooperative has also developed its own housing stock (8 buildings with 311 rooms in cluster apartments with large common spaces). These spaces exceed the standard regulations for energy-efficiency and thermal comfort. Around 8,000 students and interns in Geneva currently benefit from La Cigue’s cheaper rents, which are 30%-60% lower than standard rental market rates.

La Ciguë, Geneva, 2024 Silver winner

Myth: “It’s impossible to build with natural materials in dense urban areas.”

World Habitat’s view: Busting this myth is 2023 World Habitat Award silver winner Sostre Civic, responsible for constructing Spain’s tallest building made of wood, the cooperative Cirerers, in Barcelona. Sostre Cívic’s model is based on environmental sustainability, along with permanent affordability and community participation and management. All of Sostre Civic’s cooperative buildings satisfy the near-zero emissions standard (nZEB building) through excellent design, insulation, ventilation, and the use of renewable energy. The building also consumes 50% less water than conventional buildings, by recycling grey water for toilets and washing machines, and collecting rainwater for irrigation of green areas.

Sostre Civic, Barcelona, 2023 Silver winner.

Myth: “It is more environmentally friendly to level and build new, than retrofit old buildings.”

World Habitat’s view: Whilst building from scratch with new materials and cutting-edge techniques may be more environmentally friendly than it used to be, demolishing old buildings creates waste – tons of concrete, metal, plastic, glass, and other materials. Old buildings also have ‘embodied carbon’ (the carbon emissions associated with creating them in the first place).

However, retrofitting conserves embodied carbon, prolonging a building’s life expectancy and increasing energy efficiency at the same time. Our 2024 Gold Award winner Eneregiesprong works with social housing providers on net-zero retrofits, upgrading existing buildings to make them more sustainable and energy efficient. It collaborates with clients to find ways to finance the retrofits and its efficient fitting methods reduce costs, increase affordability and minimise disruption for tenants.

Retrofitting also offers opportunities to reconfigure spaces and increase accessibility for people with reduced mobility. This was the approach taken by 2024 Bronze Award winner 1892 e.VG, an affordable cooperative housing provider with over 6000 homes in Berlin, including the Nettlebleckplatz housing block built in the 1970s. This retrofitting project was financed through a combination of investment by cooperative members, equity, public subsidies and a loan to the housing provider.

Energiesprong, 2024 Gold winner 

A powerful environmentally friendly housing network

These are just a handful of examples of outstanding eco-friendly building projects, recognised by the World Habitat Awards in recent years. As winners, all of these projects participate in the World Habitat Awards Network, a space to exchange good practices with the other former winners of the competition. The network directly contributes to disseminating good practices worldwide and helps to dispel myths and misconceptions about environmentally responsible construction.

We know there are more eco-housing projects out there that deserve recognition and could inspire others. Our mission is to find, award, support and transfer them to new territories and contexts. Collectively, we can promote better housing for people and the planet.

Do you want to find out more about the 2024 World Habitat Award winners? Watch the recording of the 2024 World Habitat Awards Winners celebration event that took place on 22 February 2024, over on our YouTube Channel.

Contact us

The post “Too expensive, too radical and not scalable”: It’s time to change the narrative on environmentally responsible construction and regenerative housing design. appeared first on World Habitat.

Let’s have a look at some of the exceptional features of our 2024 winners!

Energiesprong, Netherlands (Gold Winner)

Tackling the widespread issue of home insulation and greenhouse gas emissions, the Global Energiesprong Alliance inserts prefabricated insulated wall and roof panels directly onto existing buildings. Additionally, it supports social housing providers to develop new financing models, making wholescale retrofitting economically viable.

Outstanding feature – fast and affordable retrofits for the social housing sector: The project supports housing providers to improve the quality and energy efficiency of their housing stock whilst at the same time prioritising the financial and liveability needs of tenants. The installations achieve a 70-80% reduction in the building’s energy use whilst lowering tenants’ energy bills in the long-term; an urgent priority given increasing fuel poverty. Because the panels are pre-fabricated, they can be installed in 7-10 days causing minimal disruption to tenants. This tenant-focused design cultivates demand and is able to scale-up rapidly. To date the organisation has completed 10,000 renovations in seven countries across Europe and North America.

Housing Rights in Jakarta: Collective Action and Policy Advocacy, Indonesia (Gold Winner)

Forced evictions – often led by a powerful state against marginalised populations – are rampant and incredibly challenging to successfully fight back against. In Jakarta, Jaringan Rakyat Miskin Kota Jakarta (JRMK) and the Rujak Center for Urban Studies and the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC) mobilised urban poor community members to stop the eviction of 256 people and helped 400 families who had already been evicted to return to their homes.

Outstanding feature – reclaiming democratic power at a local level : In a true reclamation of power, Jakarta’s urban poor have harnessed the agency of political channels to hold the Jakartan provincial government to account. Leveraging court cases, a contract with political candidates and their own voting power, the group created a better political climate, paving the way for regulations that protect residency rights. To ensure the longevity of these protections, five members of the affected communities are running in the upcoming national and provincial elections in 2024.

Programa de Habitabilidad Rural, Chile (Silver winner)

It is rare to see a government project that helps rural communities access a decent home to the same extent as their urban counterparts. The Chilean Ministry for Housing – setting an excellent precedent for the region – gives state funding and technical support to people in remote communities to build or improve their own homes. More than 40,000 people have already been helped through this project.

Outstanding feature – addressing rural housing needs at scale: The programme demonstrates that it is possible for the state to deliver large numbers of high quality, thermally efficient and culturally relevant new and improved homes in isolated and hard to access areas. Through effective collaboration between state, regional and municipal governments, residents and housing stakeholders, the programme meets the needs of people living in rural areas in a holistic way, improving not only their living environments, but also their quality of life. This model for rural development offers a hopeful path towards bridging regional disparities and ensuring everyone has access to a safe and secure home.

La Cigue, Switzerland (Silver winner)

University accommodation is and burdens students in Geneva, one of Europe’s most expensive cities. Student housing cooperative La Ciguë, which manages 740 rooms in the city, has developed a housing model that offers student accommodation at a 55% discount on open market rental rates.

Outstanding feature – elongating the life of empty buildings: While 40% of La Ciguë’s rentals are its own, 60% of its stock comes from empty city centre properties awaiting renovation or demolition. La Ciguë manages temporary lease agreements with private owners, public bodies and non-profit organisations to house students in otherwise empty buildings. The model aligns well with students’ temporary housing needs as most students only need a home for the duration of their course.

CO-HATY, Ukraine (Bronze winner)

To provide housing amid conflict is an impressive feat in itself but to do so to the quality of METALAB in Ukraine is just remarkable. Since the outbreak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to date, METALAB has renovated seven buildings providing homes for around 1300 Internally Displaced People (IDPs).

Outstanding feature – providing home-from-home comfort for people displaced by war: The level of care, comfort and detail featured in CO-HATY’s temporary accommodation is remarkable and worthy of high praise. Through its network of over 25 partners including housing non-profits, legal organisations, social services and humanitarian organisations, it instils communities with a sense of ownership, solidarity, purpose and care. As the conflict draws on, Co-HATY is providing a solution to the dire shortage of social housing common in Central and Eastern Europe, by tackling feasibility, policy and legal issues related to the long-term use of buildings by IDPs.

New Ground Co-housing, United Kingdom (Bronze winner)

New Ground Cohousing is the UK’s first group-living community for women aged 58-94 who live in their own homes while sharing social spaces and managing community life together. New Ground is a housing model that combats the common problems of isolation, loss of personal agency, lack of diversity and economic hardship that affect older people. It provides an effective solution for increased housing demand amongst aging populations, particularly across the Global North.

Outstanding feature – diversity and inclusion in later life: Given the self-selection process used for acquiring tenants, co-living and cooperative housing models are at risk of creating communities from similar socio-economic demographics. New Ground Cohousing pro-actively pushes back against that by offering mixed-tenure flats (rare among co-living communities) where some apartments are rented out as social housing. In London, this averages at about £116 GBP per week.

Berlin Nettelbeckplatz, Germany (Bronze winner)

The Nettelbeckplatz approach is an innovative way of re-thinking urban renewal, cooperative values and social cohesion. Through converting old buildings to be both energy efficient and affordable, diverse and community driven, Nettelbeckplatz answers challenges familiar to urban authorities across the world.

Outstanding feature – a building upgrade fit for the future: Nettelbeckplatz integrates social care and community values with large scale energy-efficient renovations. The housing estate was both socially and infrastructurally in disrepair, and yet this project treated its physical conversion as an opportunity to revive the social fabric; it diversified tenants to include people from all backgrounds, provided new assisted living units for older tenants while creating new spaces for social engagement – all contained within the same footprint as the original 1970’s construction.

DARAJA: The Inclusive City-Community Forecasting and Early Warning Service, Kenya & Tanzania (Bronze winner)

Although extensive weather forecasting systems are available, they are often unintelligible or impractical for communities experiencing the worst of extreme weather conditions. Resurgence, a global social enterprise, worked with international, national and local organisations, hand in hand with communities in Kenya and Tanzania to design an accessible weather forecasting and early warning system for two of the largest informal settlements in East Africa. Looking forward, DARAJA hopes that 25% of the 1 billion people living in informal settlements worldwide will be able to access its services by 2030

Outstanding feature – empowering communities to fight the climate emergency: DARAJA fuses various communication channels used in informal settlements  –  for example local radio stations, art installations, community hubs – with official weather forecasting expertise and advice. Through community involvement, DARAJA developed easy-to-understand icons for weather reports, tailored to local languages and contexts, delivered in a timely way via radio, tv broadcasts and community leaders on the ground. It is believed that accessing the service has led to a 300% increase in household repairs made in response to weather forecasts in Nairobi, and a 122% increase in Dar es Salaam.

This year’s award winners have once again showcased the ingenuity and dedication of individuals and organisations working for a world where everyone has a safe and secure home in a thriving community.

But our 2024 winners, previous awardees and those of the future need your support. Read on to find out how you can get involved:

• Join us for an online webinar on Thursday 22 February 2024 (12.00 GMT), for the World Habitat Awards 2024 Celebration – Tackling Global Housing Challenges through Outstanding Solutions
• Spread the word! Press the ‘Share’ button in the top right of our website pages to spread the news about the awards with your network and encourage others to nominate impactful housing projects every year from January until the beginning of March.
• Stay connected. Sign up for the our newsletter to receive updates and follow us on social media for inspiring stories and insights.
• Get in touch with us to find out how your organisation can provide funding or structural support to these amazing Award Winners.

Together, we can build a brighter future where everyone has a place to call home. Let’s celebrate the achievements of our 2024 winners and use them as a springboard for further progress in 2025 and beyond.

The post The Housing Innovators to Support in 2024 appeared first on World Habitat.

It also marks a significant milestone for community led housing. The Community Land Trust model (residents collectively own and manage land via a democratic and participatory institution, providing security of tenure and housing affordability) is now recognised in and supported by Rio de Janeiro’s most important urban development policy framework. It will feature in the strategies, policies and planning tools that will guide the city’s development for the next 10 years.

The importance of Community Land Trusts to favelas and informal settlements

Almost one-in-four of Rio de Janeiro’s population lives in favelas, informal settlements constructed by their residents within or on the outskirts of Brazil’s large cities. Favelas provide homes to rural-to-urban migrants and other groups unable to access adequate affordable housing. Their development is linked to land and housing inequality. Favela residents, known as favelados, also experience exploitation and discrimination for living in these communities.

Historically unregulated, neglected by government authorities and often unfairly associated with crime and poverty, favelas are in fact thriving communities of solidarity, with a long history of community-led forms of governance. Favelados invest a major part of their savings and time building and upgrading their homes and neighbourhoods, creating and running their businesses, and operating various social and cultural activities. However, with no formal property rights and a lack of institutional recognition, residents are subject to the threat of evictions and relocation, not least because of land value speculation. In this context, collective forms of land ownership and management, such as CLTs, hold great promise to secure the livelihoods and life-long investment of people, often over several generations, in their homes and their communities.

Working across communities, civil society actors, and policy makers

Taking inspiration from the 2015 World Habitat Award winner, Caño Martín Peña Community Land Trust, Catalytic Communities established the Favela Community Land Trust project (Favela CLT) in August 2018, to introduce and adapt CLTs (known in Brazil as Termo Territorial Collectivo or TTC) to Brazil’s favelas.

Catalytic Communities, who have decades of experience working in Rio’s favelas, saw the revision of Rio’s Master Plan as a strategic opportunity to actively shape urban planning and advance community-led housing into policy. In a participatory process, legally required to engage civil society, the organisation was able to play a key role in mobilising popular support for including provisions for the CLT model in the plan, following a heavily amended draft that sought to remove them.

This ground-breaking victory underscores the power of Catalytic Communities’ three-fold strategy.

1. Meaningfully engage with and learn from communities and the grassroots

Favela CLT has organised numerous community mobilisations, training events, and awareness activities in the Trapicheiros, Esperanca, Vila Autódromo, Shangri-lá and Terra Prometida favelas. They work with local residents, listening to their concerns and guided by their vision for the future of their communities.

2. Raise awareness and leverage broader civil society support

Through public campaigns and awareness raising activities, Favela CLT has created a broad coalition in support of CLT, uniting citizens and professionals including planners, architects, lawyers, researchers, social housing activists, public servants, among other agents.

3. Monitor the policy landscape and effectively respond to policy-shaping opportunities

Finally, the organisation’s policy-focused workstream has been instrumental in drafting policy proposals and identifying opportunities for change.

Community Land Trusts in Rio de Janeiro’s Master Plan

• The ‘Community Land Trust’ model is officially enrolled in the list of the city’s urban instruments, aimed at ensuring access to housing and land.
• Key elements of the CLT model are defined, such as the separation of the ownership over land and housing.
• Provision of affordable housing is defined as one of the main objectives of the CLT, along with improving the security of tenure of urban communities.
• CLTs must have a majority of local residents in their board of directors.
• The model cannot be imposed on favelas and other urban communities, it depends on the acceptance of local residents.
• Community Land Trusts will be preferably implemented in Zones of Special Social Interest, which are already identified for social housing according to the Master Plan.

Secure and affordable homes in thriving communities

Although the implementation of the CLT model does not require a specific law – Brazilian legislation already contains the key tools to enable it – the legal provisions for the model will facilitate its use and provide more security for communities already applying it.  Crucially, having CLTs as part of the city’s urban planning allows the city to consider it alongside other tools, instruments and resources, to help overcome one of the biggest challenges in its implementation of the model: the acquisition of land. Recognising and securing CLTs into policy, creates the conditions for the creation of Community Land Trusts and for people to lead the development of housing in their communities.

The approach of Catalytic Communities working across communities, civil society and the policy sphere, so vital in this victory, offers valuable lessons for all working to make urban policies and planning fairer.

We hope that Rio’s Master Plan, advancing self-governance and participatory practices in the context of informal settlements, is an inspiration for others facing similar challenges; a call to actively engage and work with policies that make residents the protagonists in the development of their cities.

The post Historic Win for Community Land Trusts in Rio’s Master Plan: Paving the Way for a Fairer City appeared first on World Habitat.

There is something very special about meeting your heroes.

Members of the World Habitat team and partners from our European End Street Homelessness Campaign from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) experienced such a moment last month at the CRESCER conference on Housing First & Harm Reduction in Lisbon. We listened intently as Housing First founder, Sam Tsemberis, called for local champions to drive housing-led solutions to homelessness. As Tsemberis delivered his opening speech to heavy applause, there was no doubt that he and his model are widely celebrated in housing circles all over the world.

What is the Housing First model all about?

Developed in 1992, Housing First was an innovative and radical solution to homelessness, in that it moved the wider debate away from the individual towards the structural causes of homelessness (unemployment; exclusion from the housing market; and discrimination). The model prioritises access to permanent housing along with holistic, open-ended support services, with no conditions attached, except the willingness to sustain a tenancy.

Its three essential components include:

1. Rent subsidy for rentals
2. Community-based supports
3. Programme philosophy based on recovery principles.

The spread of Housing First from its origins in the USA is remarkable: Tsemberis showed a map of replicated programmes across the world from Brazil to New Zealand, Australia to Canada, and also Western Europe. At World Habitat we have seen the success of the model first hand. Our homelessness partners CRESCER in Lisbon and Arrels Fundació in Barcelona operate in challenging housing markets and yet have over 100 Housing First units available to house people and families with complex needs.

Tsemberis provided the audience with a clear roadmap of how to scale-up Housing First to a city-wide housing approach, emphasising that above all, housing practitioners stay faithful to the core principles of the Housing First model. It was in that moment, the CEE members paused to reflect on the challenges of implementing such a model in their own contexts.

The day before, World Habitat convened eight members of the European End Street Homelessness Campaign for its annual gathering. Participants discussed their own housing-led programmes and shared potential solutions to each other’s challenges. Our CEE partners include organisations from Slovakia (STOPA Slovensko), Croatia (Hrvatska mreža za beskućnike (Croatian Network for the Homeless)), Romania (Carusel) and Hungary (Utcáról Lakásba! Egyesület /From Streets to Homes Association).

They discussed the challenges for Housing First and housing-led models in Central and Eastern Europe:

• The significant shortage of affordable housing and reliance on the public rented sector or cheaper private sector. With limited housing supply, it is hard to fulfil one of the key tenants of Housing First: no set time limit on tenancies.
• Demand for homelessness services far outweighs supply, so they must often provide services beyond Housing First’s target group of those with complex needs.
• Hostile government policies create barriers for fundraising and negatively influence public perceptions towards homelessness.

Rather than be defeated by these challenges, our partners in the region are working on transforming shelters to homes, by transitioning the traditional ‘staircase’ model to a housing-led one. Together we have identified some key institutional barriers and learnings which will help adapt the model to a new context. The ongoing advocacy work of the CEE network has led to housing-led solutions becoming a key policy route for some municipal authorities to tackle homelessness. From Streets to Homes Association in Hungary has significantly increased its housing portfolio through agreements with municipalities to provide flats for people experiencing homelessness and has intensively advocated for fundraising and volunteer recruitment in flat renovation.

Next year, the new ‘What About Me’ NGO in Croatia will deliver the country’s first Housing First project in the city of Pula, with funding and support from the municipality. The founders of the charity Helena Babic and Jana Milin Herceg are inspirational examples of how strategic and creative thinking, learning and sharing, and a huge amount of determination can take Housing First from ‘a good idea’ to a practical policy approach that has undeniable impact on reducing homelessness permanently.

Their learnings are key to inspiring and encouraging those in more challenging circumstances who have few case studies like their own experience in housing-led programming. Discussion, sharing and support is vital if we are to replicate housing-led models, including Housing First, far and wide.

Our CEE partners will continue to break down barriers, implement and develop their programmes, and come up with adaptations to make housing led approaches work for their contexts. Their expertise will help to refine the Housing First model for other contexts and show how it can be further replicated. And we in the housing sector, our beneficiaries and society at large, will be all the better for it.

The post Make Way for the Local Champions appeared first on World Habitat.

Can we still afford a home in our cities? As of 2021, house prices globally are rising at their fastest rate for 40 years far outstripping income increases in most countries. In Europe, at least 100 million people on low and middle incomes spend more than 40 per cent of their disposable income on housing. In the UK alone, 300,000 households could be forced into homelessness by the end of this year. Few would doubt the role of adequate, affordable, secure housing as a foundation of human development, a pillar of social and environmental sustainability, and indeed a basic human right. The pressing question for many is not why or if, but how to deliver the housing we need.

The private housing market, dominated by big profit-led housing developers and ever more shaped by the financialisation of land and housing, is excluding more and more people from home ownership and affordable rental options. At the same time, the social housing sector, part of a welfare model itself under stress, is lacking the capacity to supply sufficient affordable housing for all in need. Overshadowed by these traditionally dominant approaches, Community Led Housing remains a less visible option for policy makers looking to respond to the housing need in their cities.

Communities at the heart of housing development

Community Led housing (CLH) is characterised by a community’s meaningful agency over the housing process: the control, management, and ownership of housing, and the land upon which it is built, being in the hands of a participatory and democratic institution whose principal aim is to materialise the right to housing for its members. It may take a variety of forms, from single-plot co-housing projects to large scale housing cooperatives and community land trusts which provide permanently affordable housing to low- and middle-income groups. In all cases, CLH’s distinguishing feature is that a community-based institution leads the development and management of land and housing.

Partnerships between cities and CLH actors present a particularly promising approach to CLH often referred to as Collaborative Housing: committed to permanent affordability, partner CLH actors benefit from cities providing favourable policies and regulations. Recent experiences in different cities, Barcelona shining bright amongst them, have not only demonstrated that it is possible to place community institutions and organisations at the heart of housing production, but equally that Collaborative Housing free from the burden of profit-generation can deliver far superior wellbeing and sustainability outcomes for residents, for our cities, and for our planet alike. They add to a long established collaborative culture of cooperative housing, (notably in Switzerland, Germany and Austria) that has enabled people to access housing while guarding it from market speculation and commodification, in perpetuity.

What cities can do

The International Social Housing Festival (ISHF) in June 2023 was an opportunity to highlight some promising Collaborative Housing initiatives. In a session organised by urbaMonde and the Network of Cities for Collaborative Housing (NETCO) practitioners and city officials from Barcelona, Brussels, Lyon, the Hague, and Vienna, came together to share how their cities and regions are enabling communities to deliver affordable, sustainable, inclusive housing.

Recognising community-led affordable housing developers as legitimate actors, that are enabled to participate in the production of housing, is a critical precondition on which further policy and finance tools can build on. Institutional recognition of community actors into an inclusive and participatory housing process means harnessing the energy of communities to generate permanently affordable homes, sustainable cities, and cohesive neighbourhoods.

How to enable win-win collaborations between local government and community actors

1. Providing favourable financial schemes, notably by recognising CLH actors as affordable housing providers:

• Direct subsidies on the condition of reduced rents (Vienna)
• Operating and investment subsidies and VAT reduction for real estate transactions (Brussels)
• Refundable grants to cover a part of the development costs (Barcelona)

2. Leasing of public land at a reduced or symbolic price: 

• Renewable long-term (75-99 years) land rights and public land leaseholds (Barcelona)
• Discounted sale of public land (Lyon, Vienna)

3. Constituting long-term agreements and collaborations: housing development programme on public land agreed between municipality and CLH actors (Barcelona)

4. Facilitating parternships between co-housing groups and affordable housing providers: projects co-developed by limited-profit and affordable-rent housing developers (Vienna, France)

5. Guaranteeing external financing by banks and investors: municipal financial guarantees for public bank loans (Barcelona).

6. Supporting technical assistance and knowledge-exchange schemes that enable a broader population to engage with collaborative housing (Lyon).

Crucially, mutual trust between CLH actors and local government is a fundamental starting point. In the examples above, city governments and institutions recognise that communities and citizens are legitimate to define their needs and are often best placed to successfully use public funding for the common good. And equally, community actors understand that the processes of local government can be slow and rigid even when the political will is there.

Read the full report of the ISHF session on Cities and Collaborative Housing

At World Habitat we have worked with and learned from Community Led Housing initiatives in various parts of the world. Contact our team to learn more about some of these transformative housing solutions and connect with the people driving the change towards a fairer and greener housing model.

The post How local and regional governments can help communities deliver the housing we need appeared first on World Habitat.

Why is Urban October important? It is estimated that by 2050 nearly 70% of the world’s population will be living in cities. This has a huge impact on our present and future, how we work and where we live. Urbanisation can bring many challenges but also opportunities, and it is therefore important to develop the capacity, knowledge and tools to respond to this global issue.

Fortunately, there are exciting and innovative projects that are helping to create cities and neighbourhoods that are more sustainable, liveable, and equitable for all residents. Our World Habitat Awards are a window to that depository of excellent ideas and provide case studies in very different contexts. For example:

• In Dakar, Senegal, urbaSen and the Senegalese Federation of Inhabitants are working with women-led self-organised groups to improve their living conditions and protect residents from weather-related events (such as floods), whilst working with the government to understand and respond to the needs of the poorest residents of the city.
• In Glasgow, Scotland, Homes for Good has challenged the status quo of affordable private rental housing (traditionally fraught with poor quality and service) to offer a friendly service, personalised support and good quality and attractive homes to people on the lowest incomes.

World Habitat will be joining the Urban October conversation on:

Monday 2 October:  we will join our former world Habitat Award Gold Winners Habitat3 in Barcelona, to celebrate the continuous success of their awarded programme ‘Vivienda para las Entidades Sociales’. We will look at examples of public and private sector collaboration and the trajectory of the programme since winning a Gold Award in 2019.

Tuesday 17 October: you can join us and UN-Habitat for an online event showcasing our 2023 World Habitat Awards winners, from Senegal to Scotland, passing by Namibia, India, Spain, Mexico and France. We will be talking about solutions to current urban challenges: From lack of affordability to climate change, empty homes, a lack of infrastructure among others. Learn about good housing practice, common challenges and effective solutions from housing practitioners.

World Habitat supports and participates in Urban October to help bring these successful initiatives to the mainstream, to show that it is possible – and feasible – to do things differently, to challenge the status quo and to help shape a better urban future for all.

Find out more about Urban October and the wide range of events over on the UN Habitat webiste.

The post This Urban October, connect with the pioneers building a better urban future appeared first on World Habitat.

This blog, outlining their Housing First journey, was first published on the Housing First Europe Hub Website here.

Croatia is a nation of property owners, with a very small social rental sector in major cities and without a national requirement to provide general social housing.

According to official figures there are 2,000 people nationwide that are considered homeless, based on the Croatian Law but this is not the true number. Due to the pandemic, the number of people experiencing homelessness has increased, and many are at risk due to job loss. In addition, the change of currency to the euro and current inflation are fueling poverty and an increasing number of people are facing homelessness. Nationally, apartment rental prices rose even over 50% between 2015 and 2023. Facing such data and facts, communities should adapt and create new solutions for people with lower financial status, who do not own real estate and thus find a permanent solution with support for people in homelessness.

The city of Pula is a tourist destination in the very south of the Istrian peninsula. Over the years, tourism has brought many benefits but also changes that have forced us to adapt to the needs of residents. Currently, there is a significant number of low-income people in the city of Pula who do not have access to a narrow sector of social renting and have to find a solution in the unregulated private sector of renting or in settlements that are further from the centre of Pula. The private rental market is dominated by temporary renters who mainly rent real estate in the summer months at a high price, which is often used as an investment for families with higher incomes.

A year ago, concerns arose in the historic port city of Pula about a group of more than 80 people, many of whom are vulnerable, evicted from shipbuilding property without the possibility of resettlement. The capacity of the Homeless Shelter Pula was reached and a new option for social care was needed. The City of Pula then took care of 20 of the most vulnerable people and showed support and understanding for the needs of the community.

This background made it very urgent and the first major event in Croatia about the development of the Housing First approach was held at the Communal Palace in Pula in April 2022. Twenty-five key stakeholders from local municipalities and NGOs across Europe gathered to share knowledge and experience and discuss how to advance this important and sustainable homelessness intervention. Organised by the Red Cross Pula in partnership with the City of Pula and the Croatian Homeless Network, the event hosted experts from the Portuguese residential NGO CRESCER as well as Samara Jones from the Housing First Europe Hub remotely who explained how Housing First works.

Because of the event, several exciting opportunities opened

A local leading NGO, the Red Cross Pula, sent Helena Babić and Jana Milin Herceg on a training course led by the Housing First Europe Hub to support the introduction of a local approach to Housing First. Through meeting new Housing First trainers and expanding the network, upon completion of the Train the Trainer program Helena and Jana become the first Housing First trainers in the region. This opened new knowledge and experience, and so far, the Housing First model has been discussed on several occasions. We presented Housing First at the Healthy Cities panel, at the round table organised by the Croatian Homeless Network, at the National conference of social workers, at the Lighthouse award ceremony and many other occasions and began advocating for the Housing First model.

Also, in cooperation with the World Habitat organisation and support of the Housing First Europe Hub, the Housing First European Guide has been translated into Croatian, a promoting video about Housing First model is in preparation and for this year’s national conference on homelessness we are holding the first ever Housing First training for service providers and people working with the homeless in Croatia.

We are also excited that Croatia is one of the countries participating in the feasibility study for Central and Eastern Europe. Prompted by the previously mentioned study, the City of Pula financed a feasibility study for Pula and the results of the ongoing study are expected at the end of this year.

“What about me” – a new Croatian NGO

In cooperation with the City of Pula, Istria County and the Red Cross of Pula, a decision was made to establish a new non-governmental organization called “What about me” which will, along with the Homeless Shelter Pula, start with the first Housing First pilot project in Croatia. The project has been submitted to the Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy. On July 13th 2023 we received great news from the Ministry, and we can proudly say that Pula, Croatia is the first city in the Balkan region to implement a Housing Fist pilot project.

We need positive change and we have become aware of that; it is not easy but it’s also exciting. We know that there is a quality solution for permanent care for people in homelessness and we are in the process of creating, changing, advocating, and learning.

One thing we know, we are stronger together and only in this way can we put an end to homelessness. Thank you to everyone who supported our enthusiasm and desire for progress along the way.

WHAT ABOUT YOU, CAN YOU BE A PART OF OUR TRANSFORMATION?

Homeless shelter team Pula

World Habitat would also like to thank all parties for their cooperation in our Central and Eastern Europe Feasibility Study due to be launched in September 2023. Find out more here.

About the Authors

HELENA BABIĆ Bacc.med.techn

Red Cross Pula

Manager of the Homeless shelter Pula, Croatia

Helena has been leading the Homeless shelter Pula since 2012 when the shelter opened. She is the Vice president of the Croatian Homeless Network, president of the NGO “What about me” and has a Housing First Europe HUB Train the trainer certificate.

JANA MILIN HERCEG mr.sc. HRM

Red Cross Pula

Front line worker at Homeless shelter Pula, Croatia

Jana is the NGOs “What about me” liquidator and Vice president, the manager of the first Housing First pilot project in Croatia and has a Housing First Europe HUB Train the trainer certificate.

The post WHAT ABOUT ME? – The first Housing First pilot project in Croatia appeared first on World Habitat.

The independent report titled Roma Experiencing Rough Sleeping in Westminster and Beyond: Evaluating New Approaches, was written by Maria Dumitru and Dr Solvor Mjøberg Lauritzen of the MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society. It sets out the findings from interviews with Roma people who have experienced rough sleeping in the borough and with the professionals working with them. It also makes some recommendations for action, which the WHP will be considering in the next few months.

Importantly, it also provides some of the context of the communities that people come from, including the poverty that has resulted from centuries of slavery, oppression and genocide. This history is the background that has brought some of the poorest people in Europe on to the streets in some of the richest areas of Britain.

In recent years the number of people who are non-UK citizens sleeping rough in Westminster has risen and now make up the majority of people found on the streets. Among this diverse population, the largest group are from Roma communities in Romania, accounting for around 20 to 25% of those on the streets.

Since 2016 efforts have been made to improve the way that services work with this group and there is now a dedicated Roma Rough Sleeping team, run by UK based homelessness organisation St Mungo’s and funded by the Greater London Authority (GLA), which works in Westminster and other London boroughs. This project employs Roma Mediators who speak Romani and Romanian, and can engage with the community in their own language. There is also a Roma clinic offered at the Great Chapel Street NHS surgery. The report makes clear that these projects have transformed the relationship between services and the Roma population.

At the launch we discussed several important insights from the report:

• Migration is a major driver of levels of rough sleeping in Westminster
• Responses by WHP partners are constrained by restrictions on entitlements and employment etc
• Roma people have experienced a history of discrimination, slavery and genocide and come from some of the poorest and most marginalized communities in Europe
• Importance of recognising diversity of experience, migration stories, motivations and intersectionality
• Roma people experience harassment and feel safer in the busy streets of Westminster – they were not attracted here by the offer of homelessness services
• Health issues, fear and barriers to work and accommodation are concerns within the community
• The mediators in the Roma Rough Sleeping Team and the Roma clinic have been able to engage and build relationships with Roma people
• Narratives of “organised begging by criminal gangs” need to be challenged
• Importance of forming a Westminster response to government plans on anti-social behaviour (ASB)

We also explored the principles that we think should underpin efforts in Westminster to continue to ensure the response to the Roma population remains aligned with WHP’s mission to work together to end rough sleeping. The following principles were discussed:

• Human rights
• Focus on enhancing dignity, health and wellbeing
• Safeguarding of vulnerable people
• Build engagement and trust in culturally sensitive ways
• Involvement of people with lived experience
• Engagement of all stakeholders, including local communities
• Challenge anti-gypsyism
• Recognise the rights and responsibilities of all stakeholders
• Challenge responses that seek to merely displace people
• Evidence, evaluation and learning

Over the next few months WHP’s strategic group will be considering the recommendations in the report and will use these and the principles above to prioritise an action plan to ensure we keep making progress to reduce rough sleeping among this population.

You can read the full report here.

(An original version of this blog was initially posted on the Westminster Homelessness Partnership website here)

The post Evaluating new approaches to Roma rough sleeping in Westminster appeared first on World Habitat.

Image: Vincent de Lannoy

Why Community Land Trusts

Across Europe, housing is increasingly unaffordable and out-of-reach for many people. Instead of reflecting citizens’ right to housing, the system supports the interests of finance, with ownership and control concentrated in the hands of the few. Community Land Trusts (CLTs) own and develop land for the benefit of the community. With more than 300 CLTs in existence, they are a proven way of unlocking community-led, high-quality, permanently affordable housing for all, ready to be scaled across Europe.

Almost always, the cost of our housing is tied to rising land prices, meaning that although a property doesn’t change, it goes up in price when the land value increases. CLTs disrupt traditional ownership structures by making an important distinction between homes and the land on which they’re built, so that while the homes belong to their residents, as we are used to, the land beneath them is, instead, collectively-owned and held in trust. This protects from increasing land values and ensures that homes can remain affordable in perpetuity.

CLTs put communities at the heart of what they do. They engage communities throughout their development processes, and involve them in their governance. They empower communities to play an active part in their environments.

Success Stories from Around the World

World Habitat has played a pivotal role in the dissemination of the CLT model. Three CLTs have been recipients of the World Habitat Gold Award in the past: Champlain Housing Trust, Caño Martín Peña CLT in 2015, and CLT Brussels in 2021.

CLTs are one successful, proven way of countering the housing affordability crisis. For example, in London, the sales prices of CLT homes are as low as 27% of market value. With the increasing costs of living, particularly the cost of housing, it’s time for CLTs to be treated with the same legitimacy as other housing providers.

The Time is Now to Expand the CLT model in Europe

This is why the European Community Land Trust Network is launching. The Network will provide a platform for hundreds of CLTs to connect, and our power in numbers will allow us to expand the model across the continent.

The Network’s pursuit of permanent housing affordability across Europe creates a platform for member CLTs to share their learning, build their capacity, and become more effective advocates. At the same time, the Network seeks to grow the movement by supporting the creation of new CLTs and reaching new countries. CLTs are already active across the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, France and Spain and there is growing interest across Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

As its European voice, the Network aims to raise awareness of the CLT model, and its members, among policymakers, non-governmental organizations, and activists in the cooperative housing sphere. It will spearhead awareness and advocacy campaigns, and collaborate with development partners to drive social, design, construction and environmental innovation within housing.

As a sign of things to come, the European Network, in collaboration with the England & Wales CLT Network, is undertaking action learning research looking at pathways to scaling CLTs through partnerships with housing associations and private developers. In England & Wales alone, they estimate that with the right policy and industry support, the CLT movement could build 278,000 CLT homes, 80% of which would not be built without the CLT.

City governments from Barcelona to Brussels are looking at CLTs as a solution to their housing affordability issues and introducing policies that support their growth. Private developers are interested in partnering with CLTs, learning from their best practice and using them as a test bed for innovation. Mainstream banks are starting to demonstrate openness in lending to residents of community-led housing. The time is ripe to launch the European Network to harness and build on this momentum.

Join us at the Network’s Launch

We are delighted to confirm that the European Community Land Trust Network will be launched next week at International Social Housing Festival in Barcelona. At a tipping point for Community Land Trusts in Europe, we’ll first hear from Leilani Farha, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing and Global Director of The Shift. We’ll then pass the microphone to our members to hear their stories on pathways and partnerships for scaling, from Barcelona CLT’s collaboration with the City Government to the England and Wales’ Community Land Trust Network’s action learning research on partnership with the wider real estate sector. You can register here to attend.

To stay up to date with the work of the European CLT Network sign up to their newsletter.

The post The time is ripe for the launch of the European Community Land Trust Network appeared first on World Habitat.