Social Housing in the 27 Member States - 中欧社会论坛 - China Europa Forum

Social Housing in the 27 Member States

Compared conceptions and characteristics of a service of general interest

Authors: Laurent Ghekière

Date: 2007

Extract from ” The development of social housing in the European Union: When general interest meets Community interest“

Published by cecodhas

URL: www.cecodhas.org/content/view/27/77/

Social housing in the EU Member States is a fully valid instrument of housing policy intended to guarantee access to decent housing for all. The housing policies that exist in the 27 Member States are based on the recognition of the right to housing, already proclaimed as a precursor in Europe in 1919 in the Constitution of the Weimar Republic, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the General Assembly of the United Nations of 1948.

The right to housing is a common constitutional tradition of all 27 Member States, either inscribed in their modern constitutions, or proclaimed or effectively implemented on the basis of specific legislation making public authorities responsible for it, or by corresponding commitments on the level of the European Union, the Council of Europe and the revised Social Charter of 1996.

On the occasion of the European Nice Council, the Heads of State and Government of the European Union committed themselves to implement policies likely to ensure access to decent housing and affiliated services for all.

Social housing is a response of public authorities to the structural failure of the housing market to meet all housing needs and to guarantee access to decent and financially affordable housing for all. There are multiple reasons for this structural failure on the part of the housing market. They stem from the intrinsic nature of real estate, its locational immobility, its dimension as an infrastructural element requiring long-term financing and its rooting in given land and territory, which constitutes a certain inflexibility in face of the fluctuating and mobile demand, increasingly concentrated on urban centres characterised by a scarcity of building land. Real estate also represents a captive demand given the essential nature of the need to be met and the lack of potential substitution.

The optimal allocation of resources likely to guarantee a spontaneous balance of offer and demand is therefore impeded by the asymmetry of information between users and home owners, as housing is a need to be met in face of a scarce and rigid offer characterised by the inelasticity of its amplitudes and strongly regulated in quantitative terms by standards of urban development and minimal standards of habitability. Also, the housing offer is not very reactive and frequently fails to coincide timewise with the demand, which explains real estate cycles. And above all, it depends on the conditions of the land property market with its structurally fairly rigid style of functioning.

In view of this structural disequilibrium of offer and demand, the market proceeds via the selection of risks in allocating the offer to the demand and by the exclusion and / or discrimination of households or social groups which represent customer-specific risks in terms of solvency and / or presumed social behaviour. The flexibility of the labour market and increasing income disparities between precarious jobs and permanent employment contribute to accentuating the structural imbalance between housing offer and demand even more. As a result, an increasing segmentation can be observed between a solvent group contributing to substantial price increases and a less solvent or even insolvent group which, due to low income, is excluded from the housing market or relegated to sub-standard housing (insanitary and / or overoccupied dwellings, emergency accommodation, campgrounds, etc.).

In the European Union, on average 22% of the budget of households is spent for housing, thus making it the most expensive budget item. As a permanent cost type, it can reach up to 50% of all expenses in low income households or those who depend on the minima of social welfare. Some 22 million households are therefore living in social housing, with several million on waiting lists in those European cities where the social demand concentrates and where housing prices increase much quicker than the income of households.

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