Provision of Affordable Housing in UNECE Countries

Introduction:

This report provides an overview of the progress achieved in the provision of affordable housing in the region of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). Given the immense diversity of responses across the 56 countries in the region, the emphasis is on practices that are conducive to the provision of affordable land and housing. The report has three specific objectives.

Firstly, it explores major regional trends in housing conditions with an emphasis on availability, quality, and tenure choice.

Secondly, it analyses housing policy responses to address major challenges such as growing affordability problems, access to social housing, and improvement of substandard housing conditions.

Thirdly, the report provides recommendations for local, national, and international policy initiatives that could contribute to the provision of affordable housing in the region.

Housing Systems And Housing Conditions:

Housing reforms in the UNECE region in the past decade have promoted policies to reassert market forces and reduce State intervention. With respect to housing provision, they have emphasized deregulation, private sector involvement and demand-based subsidies. While the overall goal of these reforms has been to improve the economic and social efficiency of the housing systems, responses across the region demonstrate diversity and substantial differences in housing conditions.

Availability of housing:

Housing conditions in most UNECE countries have improved in the last decade. The general ratio of dwellings per thousand inhabitants—a crude indicator of the adequacy of housing provision—varies, with Finland and France having the highest number of over 500 units per 1,000 residents, followed very closely by Greece, Sweden and Portugal.

Water and sanitation:

Access to water and adequate sanitation in the UNECE region is one of the highest in the world standing at 94 percent on average for water and 93 percent for sewer. Correspondingly, the share of housing serviced with piped water and sewer is reportedly much higher than in other global regions.

Tenure choice:

Tenure choice is important for long-term housing market stability and access to adequate and affordable housing. Homeownership has grown steadily in most countries, particularly in those in transition. In most of the CEE and CIS countries, owner occupation exceeds 90 percent, which is well above the 65 percent average in Western Europe.

Slums and informal settlements:

Estimates by UN-HABITAT indicate that about 10 percent of the urban population lives in slum conditions without access to basic services and/or in overcrowded dwellings.

Major Challenges And Housing Policy Responses:

The new subsidy regime and affordability constraints. Under the new subsidy regime, subsidies focus on owner-occupation. Mortgage interest tax relief exists in Ireland, the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain. France offers subsidies on savings schemes for many newly-built and renovated properties and provides a quarter of a million zero interest rate mortgages annually.

Homelessness and the refugee crisis:

Homelessness across the UNECE region is a serious challenge and a sign of major failure of welfare states to deliver affordable housing for all. The total estimate of the homeless population in Europe is close to 600, 000 with more than 60,000 people sleeping rough and another 400,000 in homeless shelters. Asylum seekers are another disadvantaged category accounting for over 105,000 in temporary shelters.

Limited provision of social housing:

While affordability constraints are growing, less social housing is being provided for low income households. In Canada and the United States a handful of local governments have had the political will to overcome some of the barriers to development of affordable housing and the prospects for a meaningful reduction in the number of households with growing affordability problems are dismal.

Land shortages for affordable housing:

The irreversible trends of urbanization and concentration of poverty in some cities have affected housing affordability as well as created significant shortages of land for affordable housing. While land for housing is mostly provided through the market with a variety of long-term urban planning strategies in place to ensure 20- 25 year land supply for new housing, many high growth regions need coordinated planning by all levels of government in cooperation with civil society and commercial interests to respond to a deepening shortage of land for affordable housing.

Provision of affordable housing through urban regeneration:

A number of countries in the region address the provision of affordable and adequate housing through area-based urban renewal and regeneration programs. Local governments, working in partnership with nonprofit housing providers and community groups, have experimented with inner city regeneration, brownfield and waterfront redevelopment schemes.

Affordable Housing For All: A Call For Action:

This report provides an overview of progress achieved in the provision of affordable housing in the region of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. The overview is guided by the commitments in the UN Habitat Agenda and other regional housing policy initiatives. The UN Habitat Agenda adopted in 1996, and the Declaration on cities and other human settlements in the new millennium adopted by the Special session of the UN General Assembly in June 2001, reaffirm the commitment of Governments to ensure access to adequate housing.

Conclusion:

The comparative analysis identified major challenges in the provision of affordable housing in the 56 countries of the UNECE region and policy responses to address the critical needs of vulnerable groups in a more effective and efficient manner. Despite overall improvement of housing conditions in most of the countries, lack of progress in several critical areas remains a major concern—growing affordability problems, homelessness, limited social housing provision and land shortages in high growth areas.

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