Trends and Change in Social Housing in the European Union

Kenneth Gibb

Abstract:

Despite the advent of the Single Market and the Euro, the European Union exhibits considerable diversity in its social and economic arrangements in a number of important spheres. One significant way in which countries differ in the EU is according to the types of national housing system (which of course interacts with national economic structures, welfare regimes, social trends and policy agendas). The focus of this paper is one aspect of these national housing systems, the social rented sector, and tries to map out trends and sources of change, divergence and convergence in social renting across selected EU nations. The approach taken in the paper is from an applied economics and financial perspective.

The paper will draw heavily on the UK experience and from secondary sources examining social housing in Europe and the contemporary housing literature in selected EU countries.

The paper will be in the following sections:

• Introduction, summary and contextual discussion of housing in Europe.
• A brief, critical description of the main ways social housing is owned, constructed, funded, managed, allocated and paid for by tenants in the EU.
• An overview of public finance and subsidy for social housing in the EU.
• A consideration of the main trends in EU countries relevant to the social housing sector, including key socio-economic policy-led drivers of demand.
• A consideration of the main contemporary problems and opportunities facing social housing in the EU.
• A preliminary assessment of implications that the above discussion may have for the evolution of social housing in CEE countries, including learning lessons from past policy failures in EU countries.
• A concluding section raising questions for further inquiry.