With a real estate market that has become uncontrollable, combined with the major economic, social and democratic changes that are happening today, new expectations for social housing are emerging in cities. Can housing, and more specifically social housing, be capable of continuing to guarantee a good quality of life to the most disadvantaged? And if so, how? What is the role that cities and great urban areas have to play in facing this challenge? These are the questions that reigned over the creation of the URBACT SUITE project, which brought together nine partner cities around an ambitious objective: succeeding in including the three dimensions of sustainable development—social, economic and environmental—into urban housing policies.

Main Results

The main conclusions from SUITE are brought together in eleven key recommendations, in priority addressed to cities and regions keen to raise the sustainability level in housing and the implementation of good governance.

Recommendations aimed at cities and regions, States and the European Union:

For cities and regions:

• Inclusion should be considered right from the beginning in two areas: in the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) and at the territorial scale (local, urban and regional).
• Focus first on one of the three dimensions of sustainable develpment, and then link in the two others.
• Ensure that you have the support of policy makers and leaders right from the beginning of the project.
• Develop long-term trust.
• Dare to have a major initial investment, in order to have a powerful argument related to the expected impact when presenting the project to investors and decision makers.
• Ensure that you have solid institutional backing to hold the project together.
• Include tangible proof and prospective analyses during the preparatory process.
• Maintaining existing housing could be considered as a way of contributing to sustainable development in certain cases, notably in Eastern Europe.
• Include ‘soft measures’ (services,empowerment)
• Focus on prevention and view policies aimed at the homeless as being an integral part of housing policies.
• Promote European Union actions regarding housing and contribute as a city to on-going discussions.

For national housing policies:

• Actively promote inclusion of housing funding at a national level and within the future Cohesion policy.
• Promote and support the inclusion of housing funding in operational programmes (ERDF) and the other European funding programmes (ESF and others), and ensure co-funding at the national level.
• Launch a national Exchange Forum about housing, focussed on these operational processes (from the national level to the local scale).
• Encourage coordinated actions at a regional level to use the structural funds for housing.
• Encourage the lasting deployment of pilot projects in city policies.

For European policies:

• Optimise the benefits of broader European frameworks related to housing and urban issues (funding, exchanges, supporting urban initiatives).
• Support exchange and training activities related to how to include housing-related actions.
• Continue the URBACT programme as a way to support city housing policies.
• Improve the sharing of lessons learned between the ‘West’ and the ‘East’ within the European Union by identifying obstacles and opportunities.
• Give a major role to cities and to organisations that group cities together as part of discussions on the future Cohesion Policy and the Operational Programmes, and promote “housing ambassadors”.
• Optimise funding possibilities through the Cohesion Policy and the 2020 Lisbon Strategy.

For European Cohesion and ERDF policies

• Maintain the funding of measures that promote housing for the next funding period for the European Regional Development Fund.
• Develop a solid, joint framework for the current scheme articulating funding (energy efficiency, disadvantaged groups, redoing management systems).
• Improving the knowledge of these processes at the national level and reorienting towards Managing Authorities (mandate, support, training, support to cooperation between cities).
• Propose to regions to coordinate on the priority to be given in terms of funding housing measures and disseminating good practices.
• Rapidly organise a conference on “the importance of housing in the Cohesion Policy and the ERDF Fund”, which would bring together relevant European stakeholders in all areas.

Lessons learned from SUITE partner city experiencese:

When questioned about the most difficult part of inclusion among the three components of sustainable development, URBACT SUITE project partners for the most part pointed out the "economic" aspect. This comment undoubtedly not only echoes the currently difficulties faced in finding funding, but it also makes reference to the highly changing nature of the context (economic crisis, change in governmental agendas, legislation, etc.), which makes the economic dimension very difficult to master at the city level.

Certain partner cities also mentioned the difficulty of including the environmental aspect, notably those cities in new European Union member states. Finally, it is interesting to note that the social dimension is that which the cities are most willing to include in there upcoming actions. This contrasts with the overall trend towards often neglecting this aspect in major urban development projects. An explanation lies, undoubtedly, in the fact that it is easier to invest in social sustainability at a small scale, while this type of investment is considered too costly and not effective enough at a more comprehensive scale.

Read more

• SUITE project mini-site - URBACT website
• SUITE Synthesis of the Local Action Plans of the partners - PDF
• Zoom on Newcastle - URBACT website