Access to good-quality affordable housing is a fundamental need and key to achieving a range of economic and social policy objectives. Many Latvian households, as in many other OECD countries, struggle to find good quality affordable housing, as a result of urbanization, migration, labour mobility
and demographic changes, as well as the mass privatization of dwellings in the country’s transition to a market economy. Different measures of housing affordability and housing quality point to challenges for households in the housing market: high household spending on housing, overcrowding, housing of poor quality or in suboptimal locations, inadequate access to services, or insecure tenure.

The majority of the housing stock was developed during the Soviet era and has been insufficiently maintained. Over a third of households live in overcrowded dwellings, the largest share in the OECD, and around a quarter of poor households (those living on less than 50% of the median equivalised disposable income) live in dwellings without basic facilities, compared to an OECD average of less than 7% and an EU average of less than 6%. Some people cannot afford upgrades: almost three in ten households report housing maintenance expenditures to be a heavy financial burden.