# Financing affordable social housing in Europe (UN-Habitat, 2009)

* **Financing affordable social housing in Europe**
* The principal author is Michael Oxley. Published by UN-Habitat in 2009
* Available as a PDF file on the International Union of Tenants site: <http://www.iut.nu/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Financing-Affordable-Social-Housing-in-Europe.pdf>
* **Summary**:
  * This report evaluates the range of approaches to   financing   social   housing   that   are   in operation  in  Europe.
  * It  identifies  the  key features   that   may   be   replicable   in   other countries  particularly  the  developing  world.
  * The  evaluation  is  placed  in  the  context  of
    * the  purpose  of  social  housing,
    * the  sources  of funds  of  social  housing
    * and  the  institutions that  are  used  to  provide  social  housing.
  * The size  and  composition  of  the  social  housing stock  in  different  countries  and  the  types  of provider  are  identified.
  * The  importance  of the  rent  setting  method  and  the  allocation system    are    explained.
  * The    relationships between  public  and  private  sources  of  funds and  the  conditions  that  promote  a  flow  of commercial  funding  into  social  housing  are identified.
  * The  structure  of  European  social housing finance systems and the roles of loans, subsidies  and  equity  financing  are  explored.
  * Finance  for  construction  and  maintenance  is considered  and  subsidies  from  public  funds as well as cross-subsidies from other sectors of the  economy  are  explored.
  * The  effectiveness of social housing finance systems in achieving their  purpose  and  the  issues  that  influence the transferability of European approaches to other countries are discussed.
* **Keywords**: housing crisis, affordability, social housing, financialisation of housing

{% hint style="info" %}
Interestingly, in her foreword to the report, Anna Tibaijuka, the then-executive director of UN-Habitat, and this was back in 2009, states: "The **global housing crisis**, especially in the developing world, is getting worse by the day making the right to adequate shelter a quest that is becoming more and more difficult to meet".

One can see today's housing crisis as just the most recent phase of a decades-long process in which decent housing has generally been getting less and less affordable almost everywhere.
{% endhint %}