In early March 2022, EU housing ministers met informally for the first time in almost ten years. They had much to discuss – the housing crisis in Europe is evident. There is no country, no region, and no city where people are not suffering from the rising cost of housing. The ministers’ response was ambivalent. […]
From housing crisis to housing right
Europe is going through a housing crisis. Lower and middle-income families are priced out of gentrifying neighbourhoods. Homelessness is becoming endemic in most urban centres. People are dispossessed of their cities as the financial sector speculates, turning what should be a right for everyone into a financial asset.
However, opportunities to revert this trend do exist. Despite the bleak situation, in fact, there is room for positive action at every level, from civil society to the local, national and supranational institutions. Citizens can claim back their city and secure land for affordable housing by implementing locally the so-called Community Land Trust model; associations and municipalities can put in place systems where housing is used as a way out of homelessness; and the EU institutions have at their disposal fiscal and financial tools that can promote long-term visions for affordable living in the city for everyone, not just the wealthy few.
In this dossier, the Progressive Post is looking at opportunities for change, inspiration from the doers and perspectives for the future. A future where the city is a common good where everyone can live, work and thrive, no matter their social class.
With house prices rising worldwide, international investors and speculators are turning their eyes to housing as an object of investment. What if we tackled this problem at its root through a fairer ownership system? Globally, in many places, such a system is already being implemented by Community Land Trusts. Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that the first […]
Finland has a long tradition of keeping the reduction of homelessness high on the political agenda. In its 1982 Housing Policy Program, the Social Democratic Party of Finland states, “Access to housing for the homeless is humanly necessary, but it is also profitable to the national economy”. The party also claimed that homelessness is more […]
Related articles
Rebutting the assaults on gender equality
Tackling gender-based violence, on which an EU directive proposal is being published today on the occasion of International Women’s Day, is key to restoring momentum to the feminist cause. On this day, it is also opportune to recall the origins of this celebration, which date back to more than a hundred years ago, when it […]
Equal pay for all!
It was the early spring of 1957, when a group of smartly dressed gentlemen were sitting at a table in Rome. After a long day of meetings, the gentlemen signed a document that laid the foundation for the future European Union: the Treaty of Rome. Most ideas that originated there have been made reality over […]
To build better post-Covid societies, we must break the high inequality, high poverty cycle
The last 40 years have seen a remarkable – and prolonged – global experiment in inequality. While the post-war years of social reform led a new drive towards greater equality, that trend was then set in reverse. Today most rich nations are significantly more unequal than in the 1980s. This reversal has been driven in […]