A new EU Affordable Housing Plan: the good, the bad, and the meh
2025 was a big step for the EU and housing. Housing was to take centre stage for the first time. The European Commission announced that EU action was required, that people demanded change, and that the housing system was systematically letting millions of young people down.
A new Commissioner for housing was put in place, a dedicated housing task-force was set with the task of figuring out what the EU could do, an advisory board was set up with some of the best housing brains, and a special committee in the European Parliament was formed to add additional input. All of this to put together an EU Affordable Housing Plan.
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A year on, the Plan has arrived.
At the European Youth Forum, we have heard how the housing crisis is having an astronomical impact on young people's daily lives. We have collected stories from all over the EU about how the risk of eviction is never too far away, and how rents keep outpacing wages. Young people are fed up! We understand that fixing the broken housing system requires action from wherever it can have a positive impact, and with this, we welcome the EU Affordable Housing Plan.
As with any Plan, it mixes the good, the bad, and the meh.
It makes promises around easing the need for young people to pay up heavy deposits in the private-rental market, around legislating on short-term rentals like AirBnB, around making it easier for public authorities to support a broader mix of incomes in meeting their housing needs. It speaks on the need to reverse years of social housing decline, of increasing affordable housing options that work for a broader range of incomes, like those in Vienna and Copenhagen, and of new investment platforms to build the housing we need. All of this is good!
As with everything, however, the devil is in the details.
The Plan could do more to make sure that any new housing built from EU supported funds or finance results in real affordable housing. Housing that, after a few years, isn’t returned to the market price, that is aligned with young people’s incomes, that is immune to uncertainty and speculation in the now and thereafter. It could also have set minimum standards for private rental accommodation, and a strong EU level target for increasing the social housing stock and changing EU fiscal rules so spending on housing is treated as an investment in people’s future, not as government debt.
The European Youth Forum will continue to make sure that the EU Affordable Housing Plan results in the housing that young people desperately need and will follow up on all the promises made in the Plan.
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