Social Housing in Europe

Many countries are looking to resolve the dilemma of improving housing conditions while reducing government expenditure, and social housing is at the crux of the tension between these goals. Policy-makers, practitioners and academics want to know how other systems work and are looking for something written in clear English, where there is a depth of understanding of the literature in other languages and direct contributions from country experts across the continent. Social Housing in Europe combines a comparative overview of European social housing written by scholars with in-depth chapters written by international housing experts. The countries covered include Austria, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, The Netherlands and Sweden, with a further chapter devoted to CEE countries other than Hungary. The book provides an up-to-date international comparison of social housing policy and practice. It offers an analysis of how the social housing system currently works in each country, supported by relevant statistics.
Topics covered for each country include: what is considered to be 'social housing'; what types of households live in the tenure; who allocates the housing and what criteria they use; how new construction is financed and what form it takes; who owns social housing; what kinds of government subsidies it receives; rent levels and how they compare to rents in the private sector; development of policy towards social housing - the key milestones over the last 40 years; and current policy debates. These country-specific chapters are accompanied by topical thematic chapters dealing with subjects such as the role of social housing in urban regeneration, the privatisation of social housing, financing models, and the impact of European Union state aid regulations on the definitions and financing of social housing.