Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EqualHouse (From Housing Inequality to Sustainable, Inclusive and Affordable Housing Solutions)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2024-01-01 al 2025-01-31
EqualHouse is designed to identify, analyse, and tackle the most significant dimensions of housing inequality across Europe, to clarify their scale, character, causes and consequences and to provide local, regional, national and European housing policymakers and other key stakeholders with robust, evidence-based guidance on how to address these inequalities in a sustainable, inclusive and affordable way. Rather than relegating the production of these solutions to the end-stage of the project and generating and communicating them in a ‘top down’ way to policymakers and implementers across Europe, EqualHouse starts by considering the needs and concerns of these stakeholders and involves them as partners in the design of both the research and in the co-creation of more sustainable, inclusive and affordable solutions to housing inequality. Furthermore, the identification, exploration and refinement of solutions is integral to all stages of the research. In this way EqualHouse will not only identify more effective responses to housing inequality; it will also maximise the impact of these responses on housing policy and practice. This analysis of solutions to housing inequality is uniquely comprehensive in terms of its geographical scope, scope of housing policy instruments examined (including not only established, widely used policy instruments, but also new, socially innovative responses) and, inclusion of issues not directly related to housing (including labour and energy markets and acute housing inequalities, that are usually examined separately from housing policies by researchers).
-A project management plan (D1.1) and 'data management plan (D1.2) was completed and circulated to all project partners (WP1)
- A network of early career researchers who are involved in in the project called - Early EqualHouse - was established.
- WP2 established an online community consisting of 76 members (28 policymakers; 31 practitioners; 17 end-users) titled the European Community for Housing Equality (ECHE).
- A 'Communication and Dissemination Plan’ (D2.1) was completed (WP2), along with the establishment of a new project website (www.equalhouse.eu) social media accounts, and an online forum (via a private LinkedIn group), blogs and articles. These activities will be expanded significantly during RP2.
- WP3 completed a profiling report (D3.1). This presents a conceptual and empirical analysis of the scale, character, and
drivers of housing inequality in the EU27.
- WP4 researchers have began develop a typology of national housing systems across Europe by exmaining fiscal treatment of housing across the EU and how national financial affects housing.
- WP5 researchers have partially completed a review of policy instruments to support affordable housing provision. To date this has focused on (1) Supply-side subsidies and financial instruments and (2) Land and planning.
- WP6 researchers have completed a review of the different alternative, socially innovative housing models in Europe by Mapping all alternatives, and; describing the variety of such models throughout Europe.
- WP7 commenced preliminary work for T7.1 however more detailed planning for Tasks 7.2 7.3 and 7.4 now underway.
- WP8 have started to map the existing housing conditions in the EU (physical, environmental, socio-economic and conditions specifically related to the state of renovation in the EU). Data gathered from various EU-level sources were summarised into country profiles. Barriers to energy renovations, strategies to address them and potential consequences of renovations were also summarised from literature.
- WP9 has not yet commenced and was planned to start in M13, with Task 9.1 however preliminary planning of the WP has commenced.
- A network of early career researchers who are involved in in the project called - Early EqualHouse - was established.
- WP2 established an online community consisting of 76 members (28 policymakers; 31 practitioners; 17 end-users) titled the European Community for Housing Equality (ECHE).
- A 'Communication and Dissemination Plan’ (D2.1) was completed (WP2), along with the establishment of a new project website (www.equalhouse.eu) social media accounts, and an online forum (via a private LinkedIn group), blogs and articles. These activities will be expanded significantly during RP2.
- WP3 completed a profiling report (D3.1). This presents a conceptual and empirical analysis of the scale, character, and
drivers of housing inequality in the EU27.
- WP4 researchers have began develop a typology of national housing systems across Europe by exmaining fiscal treatment of housing across the EU and how national financial affects housing.
- WP5 researchers have partially completed a review of policy instruments to support affordable housing provision. To date this has focused on (1) Supply-side subsidies and financial instruments and (2) Land and planning.
- WP6 researchers have completed a review of the different alternative, socially innovative housing models in Europe by Mapping all alternatives, and; describing the variety of such models throughout Europe.
- WP7 commenced preliminary work for T7.1 however more detailed planning for Tasks 7.2 7.3 and 7.4 now underway.
- WP8 have started to map the existing housing conditions in the EU (physical, environmental, socio-economic and conditions specifically related to the state of renovation in the EU). Data gathered from various EU-level sources were summarised into country profiles. Barriers to energy renovations, strategies to address them and potential consequences of renovations were also summarised from literature.
- WP9 has not yet commenced and was planned to start in M13, with Task 9.1 however preliminary planning of the WP has commenced.
Deliverable 3.1 (D3.1) provides one of the first comprehensive profiles of housing inequality in Europe, addressing inequalities manifesting themselves between and within housing tenures, and beyond. It mobilises several available pan-European representative surveys and other data sources to provide a comprehensive overview of both the scale of housing inequality in Europe and of its form (in terms of its housing affordability, accessibility, quality, security, housing type and size, housing wealth across all housing tenures and also housing-related inequalities such as energy poverty). D3.1 also address relationships between Europe’s emerging housing crisis and the reported rise of extreme forms of housing exclusion, i.e. homelessness.
- Explanatory power: although the research literature on housing inequality is substantial, previous studies have limitations in advancing our understanding of housing precariousness and housing inequality. For instance housing inequality is often studied as an outcome in and of itself. Ch1. offers conceptual tools to grasp changing and intersectional dynamics in housing inequalities over time. By deploying an theory-driven dynamic and intersectional approach, D3.1 thus demonstrates how increases in relative housing inequality occur under the waterline of slowly improving aggregated trends across the population in general. The analysis presented in D3.1 also addresses several limitations regarding the conceptualization of housing inequality itself. Ch4 investigates how, across Europe, housing problems tend to co-vary in a systematic way, whilst allowing for trade-offs or cumulated disadvantages. We identified three types of housing precariousness ranging from less to more severe in terms of the stacking of additional problems: quality-, cost-, and, security-precariousness. By examining the different types of precariousness, we are able to understand nuances of housing precariousness experienced by different social groups and across countries. These nuances may remain hidden when using a single summary scale that merely compares the number of coinciding housing problems to determine if a household is more precarious than others.
- New insights: (i) into the relationship between wealth and housing inequality: While scholars recognise the growing importance of family (housing) wealth in the ability to buy a house, comparative profiles of such so-called ‘re-stratification’ of homeownership are scarce. Ch6 of D3.1 presents a descriptive exploration of cross-sectional patterns in (housing) wealth inequality across 23 European countries, based on the latest wave of the HFCS. This analysis advances the state-of-the art by: 1) conceptualizing measures of gross housing wealth and non-housing wealth that account for cross-national differences in mortgage finance as well as differing housing wealth accumulation trajectories over the life-course; 2) qualifying established relationships for a larger sample of countries from this alternative angle, broadening the focus from relative inequality to absolute levels of (housing) wealth, as well as to the concentration of (housing) wealth across the income distribution; and 3) analysing further intersections with age group/cohort and degree of urbanization. (ii) into the relationship between labour markets and housing precariousness: Ch7 of D3.1 fills important knowledge gaps by exploring the combinations of labour and housing precariousness at the regional scale in 27 member states of the European Union.
- Explanatory power: although the research literature on housing inequality is substantial, previous studies have limitations in advancing our understanding of housing precariousness and housing inequality. For instance housing inequality is often studied as an outcome in and of itself. Ch1. offers conceptual tools to grasp changing and intersectional dynamics in housing inequalities over time. By deploying an theory-driven dynamic and intersectional approach, D3.1 thus demonstrates how increases in relative housing inequality occur under the waterline of slowly improving aggregated trends across the population in general. The analysis presented in D3.1 also addresses several limitations regarding the conceptualization of housing inequality itself. Ch4 investigates how, across Europe, housing problems tend to co-vary in a systematic way, whilst allowing for trade-offs or cumulated disadvantages. We identified three types of housing precariousness ranging from less to more severe in terms of the stacking of additional problems: quality-, cost-, and, security-precariousness. By examining the different types of precariousness, we are able to understand nuances of housing precariousness experienced by different social groups and across countries. These nuances may remain hidden when using a single summary scale that merely compares the number of coinciding housing problems to determine if a household is more precarious than others.
- New insights: (i) into the relationship between wealth and housing inequality: While scholars recognise the growing importance of family (housing) wealth in the ability to buy a house, comparative profiles of such so-called ‘re-stratification’ of homeownership are scarce. Ch6 of D3.1 presents a descriptive exploration of cross-sectional patterns in (housing) wealth inequality across 23 European countries, based on the latest wave of the HFCS. This analysis advances the state-of-the art by: 1) conceptualizing measures of gross housing wealth and non-housing wealth that account for cross-national differences in mortgage finance as well as differing housing wealth accumulation trajectories over the life-course; 2) qualifying established relationships for a larger sample of countries from this alternative angle, broadening the focus from relative inequality to absolute levels of (housing) wealth, as well as to the concentration of (housing) wealth across the income distribution; and 3) analysing further intersections with age group/cohort and degree of urbanization. (ii) into the relationship between labour markets and housing precariousness: Ch7 of D3.1 fills important knowledge gaps by exploring the combinations of labour and housing precariousness at the regional scale in 27 member states of the European Union.