Home Sweet Home: where affordability meets sustainability

Housing is a fundamental right.

Nevertheless, it is becoming harder for people to afford.

Since 2013, house prices in the EU have risen by more than 60%.

Rent costs have jumped, especially in cities, and affordable housing supply is just not keeping up with demand.

Now, around one million people in the EU face homelessness and four in 10 in the EU see housing affordability as an urgent issue.

Now, with that as the framing, who is the housing crisis hitting the hardest right now? Let me start with you, Anna.

The housing crisis is affecting a broad range of people across Europe, as you were saying, especially across European cities, but it's not affecting everyone equally.

Our EuroCities data from last year shows that low-income households are consistently the group most exposed to housing affordability pressures.

They are often living in older, energy-inefficient homes, so they face a double burden, high housing costs and high energy bills.

And when rents rise or a household faces an unexpected expense, they simply have much less room to absorb that shock.

Single parent families, migrants and refugees, but also people with disabilities are among those particularly exposed.

They also face lower or less stable incomes, but also they face difficulties in accessing private rental markets, discrimination and a lack of suitable housing.

But what is changing is that the crisis is no longer affecting only the most vulnerable.

Young workers and students are struggling to make the transition into independent living, while middle income households increasingly find themselves priced out of the private rental market.

And this is particularly true for essential workers in our cities, teachers, nurses, care workers who may have a job in a city but no longer be able to afford to live in there.

Thank you.

What resonated there for you, Michele? And who do you see the housing crisis hitting the hardest right now?

I think the housing crisis intersects with several other ongoing crises.

And in a way, I think what is Anna's right in saying that what is different perhaps right now is hitting larger parts of society, and it's more broadly in society.

And it intersects with the erosion of fundamental rights.

There's an ongoing crisis where the housing situation, both driven by the growing financialization of housing, treating homes as investments rather than a human right and places of belonging and identity.

And it drives up prices beyond the means of many.

And as it does so, it widens inequalities as it hits the weakest harvest.

And with the ongoing environmental emergency, the housing stock in Europe currently is both fueling the crisis itself because of the large share that the construction sector is assuming of emissions, but it's also ill-prepared to deal with the consequences of the crisis as it is now.

So, Federica, some very comprehensive answers there.

Housing is a fundamental right.

Nevertheless, it is becoming harder for people to afford.

Since 2013, house prices in the EU have risen by more than 60%.

Rent costs have jumped, especially in cities, and affordable housing supply is just not keeping up with demand.

Now, around one million people in the EU face homelessness and four in 10 in the EU see housing affordability as an urgent issue.

Now, with that as the framing, who is the housing crisis hitting the hardest right now? Let me start with you, Anna.

The housing crisis is affecting a broad range of people across Europe, as you were saying, especially across European cities, but it's not affecting everyone equally.

Our EuroCities data from last year shows that low-income households are consistently the group most exposed to housing affordability pressures.

They are often living in older, energy-inefficient homes, so they face a double burden, high housing costs and high energy bills.

And when rents rise or a household faces an unexpected expense, they simply have much less room to absorb that shock.

Single parent families, migrants and refugees, but also people with disabilities are among those particularly exposed.

They also face lower or less stable incomes, but also they face difficulties in accessing private rental markets, discrimination and a lack of suitable housing.

But what is changing is that the crisis is no longer affecting only the most vulnerable.

Young workers and students are struggling to make the transition into independent living, while middle income households increasingly find themselves priced out of the private rental market.

And this is particularly true for essential workers in our cities, teachers, nurses, care workers who may have a job in a city but no longer be able to afford to live in there.

Thank you.

What resonated there for you, Michele? And who do you see the housing crisis hitting the hardest right now?

I think the housing crisis intersects with several other ongoing crises.

And in a way, I think what is Anna's right in saying that what is different perhaps right now is hitting larger parts of society, and it's more broadly in society.

And it intersects with the erosion of fundamental rights.

There's an ongoing crisis where the housing situation, both driven by the growing financialization of housing, treating homes as investments rather than a human right and places of belonging and identity.

And it drives up prices beyond the means of many.

And as it does so, it widens inequalities as it hits the weakest harvest.

And with the ongoing environmental emergency, the housing stock in Europe currently is both fueling the crisis itself because of the large share that the construction sector is assuming of emissions, but it's also ill-prepared to deal with the consequences of the crisis as it is now.

So, Federica, some very comprehensive answers there.