Social housing in the EU - decent, sustainable and affordable

Key points

The EESC:

• believes that there has been a market failure in housing. This must be tackled by improving framework conditions like data, coordination, approval procedures and land use planning rules, establishing a fundamental right to housing, providing sufficient funding, implementing the ‘Housing First’ approach for homeless people and focusing more on the needs of young people and sustainability;
• welcomes the appointment of a new Commissioner for Housing, who should be supported by an expert group, including representatives of the EESC and the European Committee of the Regions and asks to be involved as an observer or advisor in the work of the housing committee to be set up by the European Parliament;
• calls on the Commission to recognise social housing as an essential and promising tool of active housing policies. In the medium term, the fundamental right to affordable, accessible and decent housing for everyone should be enshrined in EU primary law. The current approach, according to which housing policy should be a programme for households with the lowest incomes only, should be rejected and State aid law adapted accordingly in compliance with the services of general economic interest (SGEI) regulation system. In addition, housing indicators should be included in the national reform programmes and stability/convergence programmes;
• welcomes the planned pan-European investment platform for affordable and sustainable housing. Moreover, non-profit property developers and cooperatives as well as local authorities should be able to obtain 0% interest rates via this platform or directly from the European Investment Bank for long-term loans;
• calls on the Commission to support Member States by issuing recommendations to them where appropriate to set up a toolbox to curb out-of-control rent increases, including, for instance, statutory rent caps, a vacant residential home tax, fiscal incentives for renovating vacant residential home in view of renting them, more social housing, limits to short-term rental permits etc.;
• calls for an action plan focusing specifically on improving access to affordable housing for young people.