Tackling housing scarcity through affordable, sustainable and family-oriented housing policies

Key points

The EESC:

• urges the Commission to adopt more ambitious measures to address the structural housing crisis, including better framework conditions, a right to adequate and affordable housing in EU primary law, recommendations to combat the ongoing financialisation, sufficient funding and a stronger focus on young people, families and sustainability; 
• calls for a comprehensive understanding focusing on combining environmental responsibility with financial affordability, for regulated basic energy consumption for vulnerable households and for a ban on them being disconnected from the grid;
• calls for an expanded and clearly defined exemption in State aid rules in order to safeguard public welfare-oriented housing models throughout the EU. Definition of target groups and income checks should be left to the Member States in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity;
• calls for landlords of homes heated by fossil fuels to bear part of the carbon tax incurred by those homes to protect tenants from excessive rent increases due to costs being passed on;
• acknowledges the role PPPs can play in making affordable housing available when combined with a clear framework, mandatory ex-ante Value-for-Money analysis liability-disclosure, sharing of revenue, contractual affordability and social and environmental safeguards. The limited-profit model in housing is a great example of such cooperation;
• reiterates the need for Member States to submit Social Climate Plans and to meet the commitments set out therein;
• believes that the Social Climate Fund, the Just Transition Fund and the ESF+ need to be increased in the next MFF and that EU funding streams for green renovations must be made directly available to households and families in need.

Practical information: 

The EESC Youth Test was applied to this opinion. European Students' Union was chosen by a group of interested youth organisations to represent all of them during the opinion-making process.