Making a house a home
The Housing Europe podcast, airing from the heart of the European capital, offers insights into the work of public, cooperative, and social housing providers across Europe. It argues that these providers offer more than just housing—they create homes for people. The show explores the urban, social, environmental, and economic impact of access to affordable housing in communities across the continent.
Afleveringen
Community buy-in wins half the battle for sustainable neighbourhoods
We continue looking at a bold new approach to sustainable living—neighbourhoods that don’t just cut energy use but actually generate more than they consume.With the EU ramping up its housing and climate commitments, Sustainable Plus Energy Neighbourhoods (SPENs) are proving that entire districts can be energy-positive while remaining affordable and inclusive. One initiative leading the way is syn.
Watts needed: securing a just energy transition for housing
As Europe moves towards a fair energy transition, ensuring access to affordable, sustainable housing has never been more urgent. With the first-ever EU Commissioner for Housing, a dedicated Task Force within the European Commission, and the upcoming Affordable Housing Plan, housing policy is taking centre stage in Brussels.In our first episode for 2025, we’re returning to a crucial question straig
The social housing in the Netherlands that produces more energy than it consumes
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges that we are facing today. Science has brought us far and we know that reducing greenhouse gas emissions to achieve a just transition to a low-carbon and energy-efficient built environment will be vital. But this entails another challenge. How can we get there, while also ensuring access to decent, quality, future-proof affordable housing? The energy
Fair circularity in affordable homes put into practice
It has now been three years since Housing Europe embarked on a special journey – to increase circularity in social and affordable homes, by bringing renovation techniques, recycling, and upcycling to a new level while preserving affordability and fairness. While we have seen multiple public, cooperative, and social housing providers implement circular models, we are now referring to Housing Europe
Taming mortgage markets can make homes more affordable
Cheap money is gold for private housing investors, and central banks have a big role to play in directing money flows. This is one of the key messages from our previous podcast episode that focused on how central banks are affecting our access to decent, affordable housing. Of course, we know that many more players are involved and responsible for the housing situation we observe in different loca
Central banks influence money flows - have they got their current role right?
Money makes the world go around and central banks supposedly keep it flowing. However, should they also ensure it flows in the right direction?
Central banks aim at promoting financial stability and could promote sustainable development that includes investment in affordable, inclusive, decarbonised housing. They could also create the perfect storm and promote borrowing, indebtedness, offering che
In search of tools that tame financialisation
Where did we leave the conversation last time? After our 12 #Housing2030 podcast episodes about affordable housing that is mindful of climate sustainability, responsible land policy, better governance and finance were listened about 2,400 times, we launched the long-awaited “#Housing2030: Effective policies for affordable housing in the UNECE region”. The study that was led by Housing Europe, UNEC
Le logement social: un véritable terrain d'innovation
[FR]
Le logement social est souvent considéré comme un laboratoire d'innovation sociale et environnementale. Ce podcast qui nous amènera à quelques kilomètres des bureaux de Housing Europe le prouvera. Alors restez avec nous, car nous allons dans le sud de la Belgique, la région wallonne.
Notre membre, la Société wallonne du Logement (SWL) nous guidera à travers leurs défis comme par exemple
Investing right in housing systems in transition
Well-functioning housing systems can be easy to grasp and build upon. At the same time, developing housing systems in transition or even starting from zero is not a given. It takes political will, dedication, time, adequate and targeted investment to ensure that communities in our cities and rural areas have decent, quality homes allowing them to focus on bigger goals in life.
In this episode, we
The ABC of housing market financialisation and what can we do to fix it
Try discussing housing affordability without mentioning the financialisation of real estate property. This key concept has affected the general housing conditions in many countries - big funds buying tens of thousands of homes, expanding mortgage market that drives up prices, constantly increasing rents, gentrification and pricing people out. The financialisation of housing can easily sound comple
Diverse funding ensures housing affordability when public finances 'get a cold'
Being a fundamental right, our homes should be treated the same way in national accounts as energy or transport infrastructure. While we often think of the social benefits of housing affordability, there are also a handful of economic reasons to reform or improve housing finance.
Building more social housing, for example, counterbalances house price inflation. Grants, loans, adapted interest rates
How to take the Finnish track in housing policy?
When speaking about social inclusion and housing, one European country can be seen as a total myth buster. Yes, it is Finland. Once travel is safe and possible again, we dare you to have a stroll in its capital, Helsinki and try to tell the difference between the tenures just by looking at the buildings. It is also the right time to say that the next edition of the International Social Housing Fes
Evidence - the compass of a good housing governance
“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule,” writes Charles Dickens in his novel the ‘Great expectations’. When speaking about evidence, the hundreds of graphs and reports about the current state of housing and well-being are crystal clear - prices and incomes rarely march shoulder to shoulder. But is housing legislation always based on facts? Positive examples
The fundamental 'building blocks' of good housing governance
When was the last time when you took a stroll around a neighbourhood and you found it well-maintained, with a good social mix and green spaces or just the opposite, rather run-down, leaving you a feeling that things can be improved? And a second question to kick off the discussion - when was the last time when you thought that districts, homes and people’s quality of life are the result of a strat
The ‘cocktail of change’ improving the cities we live in
We can’t judge a book by its cover but can we have a clear idea of the vision of a city by looking at how liveable it is? Paying special attention to the level of existing affordable housing, the configuration of its neighbourhoods, the ecological footprint of homes and people’s access to green spaces, could be a hint helping us to define how functional megapolises, cities, small towns and rural a
Bringing tenants on board - an ingredient for a successful renovation
Our home – the place where we now work and play, celebrate holidays and relax might seem to us to be always the same, just as we left it this morning. At the same time, we also know that housing is developing as we are speaking. Isn’t that a fascinating paradox? Housing renovation is now on nearly all political agendas, seen as a way to achieve climate goals, improve people’s lives and boost the e
Homes good for the climate and for the pocket - it is possible
The changing climate of the planet presents a challenge to all of us. Besides being a key issue that we need to tackle swiftly and effectively, climate change and environmental goals have to be designed to protect all parts of our society. With the need to heat, cool and build our homes more sustainably, housing goes right at the heart of the climate discussion.
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Making a house a home - A message for "decent and affordable housing for all" from the European Parliament
After discussing the EU Green Deal and its ambition for a Renovation Wave, today we’re heading back to the European Parliament to meet one of its Dutch Members with the Greens, Kim van Sparrentak. Kim is currently rapporteur of the European Parliament upcoming own initiative report on “Decent and Affordable Housing for All” and the timing unfortunately couldn’t have been more appropriate given tha
Making a house a home - The key success of the EU Green Deal would be to help all members of society
We’re back with yet another episode of our series around the housing aspect of the Coronavirus Crisis, in which we are addressing a number of questions that are probably in your mind as well, with one special guest each time.
Today, we’re making the link with the European Commission flagship initiative, the EU Green Deal and the so called ‘Renovation Wave’ that is envisaged to improve the conditio
Making a house a home - A pandemic as the death sentence for policies at the root of inequalities
In episode 2 of our Coronavirus podcast series, we welcome the Secretary General of Housing Europe, Sorcha Edwards. Since it’s been a while we can’t meet in the office, we had a Skype Call with Sorcha to discuss which aspects of an existing, underlying housing crisis has the current pandemic put forward and the response of the public, cooperative and social housing providers to this extremely chal
Making a house a home #8 - Getting a taste of how the EU Green Deal looks like in practice
Housing Europe organised a field trip to the UIA backed project ‘Superlocal’ in Kerkrade in the Netherlands for a delegation consisting of MEP, Kim Van Sparrentak and European Commission Officials from DG Grow and the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME). Participants had the chance to meet the stakeholders that made this truly innovative, c
