Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, definitions of
poverty
Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...
, and other criteria for allocation vary within different contexts. Public housing developments are classified as housing projects that are owned by a city's
Housing authority
A housing authority or ministry of housing is generally a governmental body that governs aspects of housing or (called in general "shelter" or "living spaces"), often providing low rent or free apartments to qualified residents. The existence of ...
or Federally subsidized public housing operated through
HUD
Hud or HUD may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Hud'' (1963 film), a 1963 film starring Paul Newman
* ''Hud'' (1986 film), a 1986 Norwegian film
* ''HUD'' (TV program), or ''Heads Up Daily'', a Canadian e-sports television program
Places
* Hud, Far ...
.
Social housing is any rental housing that may be owned and managed by
the state
A state is a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a population within a territory. There is no undisputed definition of a state. One widely used definition comes from the German sociologist Max Weber: a "stat ...
, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the two, usually with the aim of providing affordable housing. Social housing is generally rationed by a government through some form of
means-testing
A means test is a determination of whether an individual or family is eligible for government assistance or welfare, based upon whether the individual or family possesses the means to do without that help.
Canada
In Canada, means tests are use ...
or through administrative measures of housing need. One can regard social housing as a potential remedy for housing inequality. Private housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by an individual, private developer or by a non-profit organization. Privately owned apartment complexes are multifamily subsidized housing, where the subsidy is given to the owner who provides affordable housing. This subsidy stays with the property.
History
Social housing had existed sporadically prior to modern developments. The oldest still in use is the 16th century Fuggerei in
Augsburg
Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...
,
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
.
The origins of modern municipal housing lie in the dramatic urban population increase caused by the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
of the 19th century. In the large cities of the period, many social commentators, such as
Octavia Hill
Octavia Hill (3 December 1838 – 13 August 1912) was an English Reform movement, social reformer, whose main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born into a fa ...
and Charles Booth reported on the squalor, sickness and immorality that arose. Henry Mayhew, visiting
Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green is an area in the East End of London northeast of Charing Cross. The area emerged from the small settlement which developed around the common land, Green, much of which survives today as Bethnal Green Gardens, beside Cambridge Heat ...
philanthropists
Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...
began to provide housing in tenement blocks, and some factory owners built entire villages for their workers, such as
Saltaire
Saltaire is a Victorian era, Victorian model village in Shipley, West Yorkshire, Shipley, part of the City of Bradford Metropolitan District, in West Yorkshire, England. The Victorian era Salt's Mill and associated residential district locate ...
Farringdon Road
Farringdon Road is a road in Clerkenwell, London.
Route
Farringdon Road is part of the A201 route connecting King's Cross to Elephant and Castle. It goes southeast from King's Cross, crossing Rosebery Avenue, then turns south, crossing C ...
in 1865. The world's first large-scale housing project was built in London to replace one of the capital's most notorious slums – the Old Nichol. Nearly 6,000 individuals were crammed into the packed streets, where one child in four died before his or her first birthday.
Arthur Morrison
Arthur George Morrison (1 November 1863 – 4 December 1945) was an English writer and journalist known for realistic novels, for stories about working-class life in the East End of London, and for detective stories featuring a specific detecti ...
wrote the influential ''
A Child of the Jago
''A Child of the Jago'' is an 1896 novel by Arthur Morrison.
Background
A bestseller in its time, it recounts the brief life of Dicky Perrott, a child growing up in the "Old Jago", a fictionalisation of the Boundary_Estate#Old_Nichol_rookery, Old ...
'', an account of the life of a child in the slum, which sparked a public outcry. Construction of the
Boundary Estate
The Boundary Estate is a housing development in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London.
It is positioned just inside Bethnal Green's historic parish and borough boundary with Shoreditch, which ran along ''Boundary Stre ...
was begun in 1890 by the
Metropolitan Board of Works
The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the principal instrument of local government in a wide area of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, defined by the Metropolis Management Act 1855, from December 1855 until the establishment of the London County ...
and completed by the then-recently formed
London County Council
London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...
London County Council
London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...
Totterdown Fields
Totterdown Fields was the first London County Council cottage estate built between 1901 and 1911 It contained 1244 individual houses built over . The estate was designated a conservation area, on 19 September 1978.
Context
It was the first Lon ...
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
indirectly provided a new impetus, when the poor physical health and condition of many urban recruits to the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
was noted with alarm. In 1916, 41% of conscripts were unfit to serve. This led to a campaign known as ''
Homes fit for heroes
A council house is a form of British public housing built by local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing a number of council houses and other amenities like schools and shops. Construction took place mainly from 1919 a ...
'' and in 1919 the Government first compelled councils to provide housing, helping them to do so through the provision of subsidies, under the
Housing Act 1919
The Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 (c 35) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was also known as the Addison Act after Minister of Health, Christopher Addison, who was Minister for Housing. The Act was passed to allow the ...
. Public housing projects were tried out in some European countries and the United States in the 1930s, but only became widespread globally after the Second World War.
Africa
South Africa
South African apartheid featured high poverty rates in Black South Africans due to racial segregation and discrimination, so the post-apartheid government has sought to build social housing for poor black households, in urban areas with economic opportunity The Reconstruction and Development and Breaking New Ground programs have provided over 3.5 million houses from 1995 to 2020, but they did not fully meet demand, and were built away from inner urban areas, exacerbating racial divides. The housing shortage was estimated to be 3.7 million units in 2021. The Department of Human Settlements, which facilitates national housing development, has sought to transition from a housing-focused development model to a holistic view, including services.
Americas
Brazil
("My House, My Life"), the Brazilian Government, Brazilian federal government's social housing program, was launched in March 2009 with a budget of R$36 billion (US$18 billion) to build one million homes. The second stage of the program, included within the government
Growth Acceleration Program
Growth may refer to:
Biology
* Auxology, the study of all aspects of human physical growth
* Bacterial growth
* Cell growth
* Growth hormone, a peptide hormone that stimulates growth
* Human development (biology)
* Plant growth
* Secondary growt ...
(PAC, ) was announced in March 2010. This stage foresaw the construction of a further two million homes.
All funds for properties were provided by the Brazilian public bank, . The bank financed development and provided mortgages for qualifying families.
, 4.5 million homes were built and distributed to the population. The project has been criticized for its placement and quality of the houses. Houses are built far from the city centre to reduce housing costs which consequently reduces access to the labor market; a study of randomly selected houses of the MCMV project in
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
showed a reduced likelihood of being formally employed in job-seekers but income was not affected in those who were already employed.
Canada
In Canada, public housing is usually a block of purpose-built
subsidized housing
Subsidized housing is government sponsored economic assistance aimed towards alleviating housing costs and expenses for impoverished people with low to moderate incomes. In the United States, subsidized housing is often called "affordable housin ...
operated by a government agency, often simply referred to as community housing, with easier-to-manage townhouses. Many cities in Canada still maintain large high-rise clustered developments in working-class neighborhoods, a system that has fallen into disfavour in both the United States and the United Kingdom. However, many public housing corporations still offer a variety of buildings and communities ranging from individual houses to townhouse communities and mid-rise and high-rise apartments in both working-class and middle-class neighborhoods that house a significant number of low-income Canadians.
Following the decentralisation of public housing to local municipalities,
Social Housing Services Corporation
The Social Housing Services Corporation (SHSC) operated in the Province of Ontario, Canada to provide group services for social housing providers, non-profit housing and co-operative housing following the downloading of responsibility for over 2 ...
(SHSC) was created in the Province of Ontario in 2002 to provide group services for social housing providers (public housing,
non-profit housing
Non-profit housing developers build affordable housing for individuals under-served by the private market. The non-profit housing sector is composed of community development corporations (CDC) and national and regional non-profit housing organiza ...
and
co-operative housing
A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Housing cooperatives are a distinc ...
). It is a non-profit corporation which provides Ontario housing providers and service managers with bulk purchasing, insurance, investment and information services that add significant value to their operations.
Recently, there has been a move toward the integration of public housing with market housing and other uses. Revitalization plans for properties such as in the notorious Downtown Eastside of
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
,
Regent Park
Regent Park is a neighbourhood located in downtown Toronto, Ontario built in the late 1940s as a public housing project managed by Toronto Community Housing. It sits on what used to be a significant part of the Cabbagetown neighbourhood and i ...
, in Toronto, and Rochester Heights in
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
, aim to provide better accommodations for low-income residents, and connect them to the greater community. The aim of the reconstruction plans are often to better integrate it into the traditional grid of streets, improve leisure and cultural amenities. However, the residents of these communities often have had little effective input in the plans and have had mixed reactions to the construction.
In 2014,
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, long considered one of the least affordable cities in the world, changed the definition of social housing to mean rental housing in which a minimum of 30 percent of dwelling units are occupied by households that cannot pay market rents, due to lack of income.
Mexico
At the end of the Second World War, enriched by US investments and an
oil boom
An oil boom is a period of large inflow of income as a result of high global oil prices or large oil production in an economy. Generally, this short period initially brings economic benefits, in terms of increased GDP growth, but might later lead ...
, Mexico had its first demographic boom, in which the primary destination for rural immigrants was
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
. , a famous architect at time, was charged to build its first large-scale public housing project. Built for the (the National Pensions office, today ISSSTE), the (or ) (1947–50) in the Colonia del Valle and the (or ) (1951–52) in the , introduced formal ideas from
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...
's into the urban fabric.
His later project, the built in 1960–65, was meant to develop one of the poorest parts of the city, , which was becoming a slum. Unfortunately, after a while, instead of giving the residences to the previous residents of , corruption took place and most of the dwellings were handed to state employees.
During the earthquake of 1985, both the and complexes suffered major damage, with some buildings collapsing. Today most of the has been demolished.
Mexico has had experience with housing projects since 's regime (1877–1880, 1884–1911). One of those still remains and is the of in in Mexico City, that was a project for a paper factory workers.
Puerto Rico
Neighbourhoods in Puerto Rico are often divided into three types: , (urbanisation) and (public housing).''La realidad de las mujeres en las cárceles del país.'' Primera Hora. 7 April 2014. Retrieved 11 April 2014. An is a type of housing where land is developed into lots, often by a private developer, and where single-family homes are built. More recently, non-single-family units, such as
condominium
A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership structure whereby a building is divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned. The term can be applied to the building or complex ...
s and
townhouse
A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence ...
s are being built which also fall into this category. (In Puerto Rico, a condominium is a housing unit located in a high-rise building. It is popularly called an (English: 'apartment'), whether or not its resident owns the unit or lives it as a renter.) Public housing, on the other hand, are housing units built with government funding, primarily through programs of the
US Department of Housing and Urban Development
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It administers federal housing and urban development laws. It is headed by the Secretary of Housing and Urb ...
(HUD) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). These have traditionally consisted multi-family dwellings in housing complexes called a or a (and more recently a ), and where all exterior grounds consist of shared areas.
Increasingly, however, public housing developments are being built that consist of other than the traditional multi-family dwellings with all exterior grounds consisting of shared outside area, for example, public housing may consist of single family
garden apartment
An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ...
s units. Finally, a home that is located in neither an nor of a public housing development is said to be located in (and to be a part of) a . In Puerto Rico, a also has a second and very different meaning official meaning: the geographical area into which a is divided for official administrative purposes. In this sense, as well as public housing developments (as well as one or several in the popular sense) may be located in one of these 901 official geographic areas.
United States
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, government involvement in housing for the poor was chiefly in the introduction of building standards.
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
's
Techwood Homes
Techwood Homes was an early public housing project in the United States, opened just before the First Houses. Located in Atlanta, Georgia, the whites-only Techwood Homes replaced an integrated settlement of low-income people known as Tanyard B ...
, dedicated in 1935, were the nation's first public housing project. Most housing communities were developed from the 1930s onward and initial public housing was largely
slum
A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...
clearance, with the requirement insisted upon by private builders that for every unit of public housing constructed, a unit of private housing would be demolished.
This also eased concerns of the establishment by eliminating or altering neighborhoods commonly considered a source of disease, and reflected progressive-era sanitation initiatives. Moreover, public housing, along with the Federal Highway Program, demolished the older, substandard housing of communities of color across the United States.
However, the advent of makeshift tent communities during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
caused concern in the Administration. The Federal public housing program was created by the 1937 Act, in which operations were "sustained primarily by tenant rents." As a result, public housing in its earliest decades was usually much more working-class and middle-class and white than it was by the 1970s. Many Americans associate large, multi-story towers with public housing, but early projects were actually low-rise, though
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...
superblocks caught on before World War II.
A unique US public housing initiative was the development of subsidized middle-class housing during the late
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
(1940–42) under the auspices of the
Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division The Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division of the Federal Works Agency, an agency of the United States government, operating from about 1940 to 1942 under the leadership of Colonel Lawrence Westbrook, was an attempt by the United States Governme ...
Colonel Lawrence Westbrook
Colonel Lawrence Westbrook (born 23 August 1889 in Belton, Texas) was a Texan politician and official in the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A 1908 graduate of the University of Texas and later the University of Texas Law School ...
. These eight projects were purchased by the residents after the Second World War and as of 2009 seven of the projects continue to operate as mutual housing corporations owned by their residents. These projects are among the very few definitive success stories in the history of the US public housing effort.
Public housing was only built with the blessing of the local government, and projects were almost never built on suburban greenfields, but through regeneration of older neighborhoods. The destruction of tenements and eviction of their low-income residents consistently created problems in nearby neighborhoods with "soft" real estate markets. Houses, apartments or other residential units are usually subsidized on a rent-geared-to-income (RGI) basis. Some communities have now embraced a mixed income, with both assisted and market rents, when allocating homes as they become available.
A significant change in the program took place in 1969, with the passage of the Brooke Amendment. Rents now became set at 25% of a tenant's income with the result that the program began serving the "poorest tenants."
The federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) department's 1993 HOPE VI program addressed concerns of distressed properties and blighted superblocks with revitalization and funding projects for the renewal of public housing to decrease its density and allow for tenants with mixed income levels. Projects continue to have a reputation for violence, drug use, and prostitution, especially in
New Orleans
New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...
,
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
and
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
, leading to the passage of a 1996 federal "
one strike you're out
One strike, you're out, is a colloquial term for a policy which allows tenants living in housing projects or otherwise receiving housing assistance from the federal government to be evicted if they, or any guest or visitor under their more-or-les ...
" law, enabling the eviction of tenants convicted of crimes, especially drug-related, or merely as a result of being tried for some crimes.
Other attempts to solve these problems include the 1974 Section 8 Housing Program, which encourages the private sector to construct affordable homes, and subsidized public housing. This assistance can be "project-based", subsidizing properties, or "tenant-based", which provides tenants with a voucher, accepted by some landlords.
Asia
China
The public-owned housing system was established when the
Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
started a
planned economy
A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, part ...
in the 1950s as part of its
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruc ...
. The system was funded by the central government's budget and were administered and distributed by
state-owned enterprises
A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the governmen ...
. The occupants of the public housing were usually the employees of the enterprises and their family, who were subject to pay rent at a very low price. The size and the type of room the households received were dependent on their job title or administrative level. The central government found it difficult to upkeep the public housing due to the low rent it received; the distribution policy that was intended to be "
equalitarianism
Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hum ...
" was actually corrupt.
The Chinese government commercialized the housing market after the economic reform started in 1978 by
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CC ...
. The public houses that were constructed before that the economic reforms were categorized as "Old Public Houses" ( zh, 老公房). "Old Public Houses" were, in principle, not supposed to be privately sold, but the household could sell it after purchasing the ownership of the building (not the property), and such transactions were subject to be review by local housing authorities and the
State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission
The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) is a special commission of the People's Republic of China, directly under the State Council. It was founded in 2003 through the consolidation of variou ...
. However, an informal filing system and unclear policies resulted in problems of corruption and family dispute.
The concept of the low-cost rental housing can be traced to a 1998 policy statement, but did not truly take off until 2006 due to limited funding and administrative problems. The provision of more affordable housing is one of the key components of China's Twelfth Five-year Plan, which targets the construction of 36 million homes by 2015. That program's costs will be split between the private and public sector and are estimated at five trillion yuan by
China International Capital Corporation
China International Capital Corporation Limited (CICC; 中国国际金融股份有限公司) is a Chinese partially state-owned multinational investment management and financial services company. Founded in China in 1995, CICC provides investment ...
.
Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, public housing is one of the major housing policies of the government. Nearly half of Hong Kong's 7.5 million population lives in public housing.Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department – Population by type of housing The government provides public housing through flats which are rented at a lower price than the market rate, and through the
Home Ownership Scheme
The Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) is a subsidised-sale public housing programme managed by the Hong Kong Housing Authority. It was instituted in the late 1970s as part of the government policy for public housing with two aims – to encourage b ...
, are sold at a lower price. The
Hong Kong Housing Authority
The Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) is the main provider of public housing in Hong Kong. It was established in April 1973 under the Housing Ordinance and is an agency of the Government of Hong Kong. In the same year, the Resettlement Departm ...
and the Hong Kong Housing Society build and administer these homes. The two main public housing providers are the
Housing Authority
A housing authority or ministry of housing is generally a governmental body that governs aspects of housing or (called in general "shelter" or "living spaces"), often providing low rent or free apartments to qualified residents. The existence of ...
and the Housing Society.
The most common types of public housing in Hong Kong are public rental housing (PRH) and subsidised sale flats produced under the
Home Ownership Scheme
The Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) is a subsidised-sale public housing programme managed by the Hong Kong Housing Authority. It was instituted in the late 1970s as part of the government policy for public housing with two aims – to encourage b ...
(HOS). In 2016, approximately 31 per cent of Hong Kong households lived in PRH flats while 15 per cent resided in subsidised sale flats (of all types).
The origin of large-scale public housing in Hong Kong can be traced to the resettlement programme launched by the Hong Kong government in the 1950s in response to the increasing prevalence of squatter settlements, which emerged as a result of a great influx of refugees following the
Communist revolution in China
The Chinese Communist Revolution, officially known as the Chinese People's War of Liberation in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and also known as the National Protection War against the Communist Rebellion in the Republic of China (ROC ...
. The squatter villages were considered unsafe as they were susceptible to disastrous fires, including a 1953 blaze in Shek Kip Mei that rendered over 50,000 people homeless overnight.
Large-scale resettlement estates were built throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In 1973, the government of
Sir Murray MacLehose
Crawford Murray MacLehose, Baron MacLehose of Beoch, (; 16 October 1917 – 27 May 2000), was a British politician, diplomat and the 25th Governor of Hong Kong, from 1971 to 1982. He was the longest-serving governor of the colony, with four ...
launched the Ten-Year Housing Programme, which aimed to provide the entire population with "satisfactory housing" within a decade. The government also launched the
Home Ownership Scheme
The Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) is a subsidised-sale public housing programme managed by the Hong Kong Housing Authority. It was instituted in the late 1970s as part of the government policy for public housing with two aims – to encourage b ...
(HOS) in 1976 to enable lower-income households to purchase flats.
Many public housing estates were built as part of new town development programmes. During the 1980s, most of the earliest resettlement estates (from the 1950s and early 1960s) were also rebuilt to modern standards. Public housing remains a key concern of the Hong Kong Government, which plans to construct some 330,000 units between 2022 and 2032.
Indonesia
Indonesia has undertaken ''One Million Houses program'' for low-income people. The program has been implementing since 2015 to achieve an ambitious target of building 10 million houses. The proportion of the housing is 70 percent for low-income people and 30 percent for non-low-income people. This program is a joint movement between the Central Government, regional governments, real estate developers and the community. The program is targeted to reach one million housing units annually. In 2015, about 700,000 homes were built, increasing to approximately 800,000 in 2016 and around 904,000 by the end of 2017.
Japan
is the Japanese word for a large cluster of apartment buildings or houses of a particular style and design, typically built as public housing by government authorities.
The Japan Housing Corporation (JHC), now known as the
Urban Renaissance Agency , also known as (UR, , ), is a semipublic Independent Administrative Institution, and is an agency responsible for Japanese housing. It provides housing at rates pegged to the market, but without the fees associated with private renting in Japan (k ...
(UR), was founded in 1955. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the JHC built many in suburban areas to offset the increasing housing demand during the post-World War II economic boom. It introduced the Japanese salaryman to a life around the
nuclear family
A nuclear family, elementary family, cereal-packet family or conjugal family is a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single-parent family, the larger ...
in contrast with the multi-generation homes before the war.
The rent payment for a is much cheaper than that of an apartment or a mortgage, but for a public the prospective tenant must usually participate in a lottery to be assigned an open apartment. Residents in UR danchi do not have to pay key money or contract renewal fees, making the residences cheaper than comparable housing even if the monthly rents are equivalent.
Singapore
In Singapore, the public housing program, particularly the planning and development of new public housing and the allocation of rental units and resale of existing ownership units, is managed by the
Housing and Development Board
The Housing & Development Board (HDB) (; ms, Lembaga Perumahan dan Pembangunan; ta, வீடமைப்பு வளர்ச்சிக் கழகம்) or often referred to as the Housing Board, is a statutory board under the M ...
. Day-to-day management of public housing communities has been delegated to Town Councils headed by the local members of parliament.
In 2018, 78.7% of Singaporeans live in public residential developments, ranging from studio units to executive condominiums provided by the HDB, a major factor in Singapore having one of the highest home-ownership rates – over 90% of the resident population – in the world.
Vietnam
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Vietnam built ''Khu tập thể'' (KTT), socialist-modeled apartment blocks on the periphery of cities for civil servants, state-owned companies' workers, and military personnel. Market reforms in the late 1980s resulted in the partial privatization of the KTT, which were sold to low- and low-middle income populations. The KTT have since become dilapidated, due to a lack of municipal funding for repairs and maintenance, and been the target of demolition, displacement, and redevelopment for high-income populations.
In the 2010s, Vietnam has experienced a surge in property prices, with the affordable housing stock shrinking by 7% of the entire housing stock from 2014 to 2016, and apartment prices rising by 90% between 2017 and 2020. Developers are not interested in social housing projects since they are not profitable, even amidst rising demand from workers, so the Ministry of Construction requires funding to build 294,600 social housing units in the 2021 – 2025 period.
Europe
European Union
According to a 2018 discussion paper of the
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
, in 2015, 11.3% of the EU-population lived in households that spent 40% or more of their disposable income on housing.
In January 2019, the former
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
President,
Romano Prodi
Romano Antonio Prodi (; born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Prim ...
, declared that "public investment in social infrastructure during the
Eurocrisis
The European debt crisis, often also referred to as the eurozone crisis or the European sovereign debt crisis, is a multi-year debt crisis that took place in the European Union (EU) from 2009 until the mid to late 2010s. Several eurozone membe ...
reached a 20-year low. Current investment in social infrastructure in the EU is estimated at 170 billion euros per year. The minimum infrastructure investment gap in these sectors is estimated at 100 to 150 billion euros, representing a total gap of at least 1.5 trillion euros between 2018 and 2030."
Housing projects in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
can be found in
urban area
An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...
s, as well as in
suburban area
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
s.
The EU was moving to support more affordable, energy-efficient and accessible housing with the financial contribution of the CEB and of the
EIB
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
through its
European Fund for Strategic Investments The InvestEU Programme, until 2021 known as the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), also called the Juncker Plan, is an initiative of EIB Group and the European Commission aimed at boosting the economy through mobilising private financi ...
. Public funding was planned to be directed primarily on affordable housing and secondly in the education and lifelong learning, health and long-term care sectors.
Austria
Public housing was an important issue right from the foundation of the
Republic of German-Austria
The Republic of German-Austria (german: Republik Deutschösterreich or ) was an unrecognised state that was created following World War I as an initial rump state for areas with a predominantly German-speaking and ethnic German population wi ...
in 1918. The population was faced with a great deal of uncertainty particularly as regards food and fuel. This led to a significant number of less affluent people to move to the periphery of towns, often building makeshift homes to be closer to where they could grow food. They were called ('settlers'). As the political situation became stabilised with foundation of the
First Austrian Republic
The First Austrian Republic (german: Erste Österreichische Republik), officially the Republic of Austria, was created after the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 10 September 1919—the settlement after the end of World War I w ...
in September 1919, the movement started creating formal organizations like the
Austrian Association for Settlements and Small Gardens The Austrian Settlement and Allotment Garden Association (german: Österreichische Verband für Siedlungs- und Kleingartenwesen, OVSK) was an organisation established following the First World War to support people in need of housing and the allotme ...
. The electoral victory of the
Social Democratic Party of Austria
The Social Democratic Party of Austria (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs , SPÖ), founded and known as the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (german: link=no, Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreichs, SDAPÖ) unti ...
in the elections for the Viennese (city parliament) gave rise to
Red Vienna
Red Vienna (German: ''Rotes Wien'') was the colloquial name for the capital of Austria between 1918 and 1934, when the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (SDAP) maintained almost unilateral political control over Vienna and, for a short ...
. Part of their programme was the provision of decent homes for the Viennese working class who made up the core of their supporters. Hence the German word (plural: ) for "municipality building". In Austria, it refers to residential buildings erected by a municipality, usually to provide public housing. These have been an important part of the architecture and culture of
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
since the 1920s.
Belgium
Social housing is a responsibility of the regions in Belgium. The regions don't directly own the houses, semi-private social housing corporations do. The government regulates and mostly finances this corporations. Below a certain income limit, people are eligible for social housing. Because there is a major shortage of social housing in Belgium, other priority conditions are often imposed, such as having children to care for. Social housing accounts for approximately 6.5% of the Belgian housing market. This is much lower than neighbouring countries such as the Netherlands and France. As of 2018
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...
,
Wallonia
Wallonia (; french: Wallonie ), or ; nl, Wallonië ; wa, Waloneye or officially the Walloon Region (french: link=no, Région wallonne),; nl, link=no, Waals gewest; wa, link=no, Redjon walone is one of the three regions of Belgium—alo ...
and
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
are responsible for 280,687 social houses, 212,794 people are on the waiting list. For the people on the waiting list there are other possibilities such as subsidies and sociale rental agencies in Flanders.
Denmark
In Denmark, public housing is called and is owned and administered by approximately 700 self-governing, democratic and non-profit organizations by and for the tenants themselves. Many of the public housing organizations in Denmark are rooted in the early history of the
labor union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
s and currently forms about 20% of the total housing stock with about 7,500 departments countrywide. A membership of a housing organization is usually required to obtain a rental and they are granted with regard to length of membership.
Although the buildings are owned and administered by self-governing and economically independent organizations, the State of Denmark is strongly regulating public housing in the country. By law, the municipalities have access to 25% of the rentals, usually reserving them for the poor, the unemployed, the disabled or mentally ill or any other group dependent on social benefits from the municipality. Over the years, these regulations have created many 'especially vulnerable residential areas' – so called " ghettos" – within the country. Danish public housing has never had any income restrictions, but in recent years new state regulations has made it mandatory for several of them to favor fully employed renters and disfavor unemployed or part-time employed people. This is a relatively new effort by the state to counter the ghettoisation, which is now an officially recognized problem countrywide.
As in Sweden, state and municipal policies carried out throughout the first decade of the 21st century, has led to an increased privatization of public housing. In many areas, residents have been offered to buy their own flats, thereby effectively changing the status of the property. The privatization of public housing was initiated as part of an ideological program by the right wing governments of the early 21st century and was launched a few years after the closure of the former Ministry of Housing Affairs in 2001. The former ministry was re-opened as Ministry of Housing, Urban and Rural Affairs in October 2011, when a new coalition government led by
social-democrats
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote s ...
was formed.
Finland
The earliest public housing project in
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
was in
Helsinki
Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...
. In 1909, four wooden houses designed by the architect were built on (formerly ) for the city's workers. The residents were mainly working-class families with several children. The apartments had an average of five people per room, sometimes up to eight. The tiny apartments were equipped with running water, a pantry and an attic cupboard. Every apartment had its own toilet in the cellar. Electric lighting was installed in 1918.
The homes and lives of worker families in Helsinki from 1909 to 1985 are presented in a museum near the amusement park.
In 2008, Helsinki launched its Housing First policy, with the goal of ending homelessness by prioritizing unconditional housing. With municipal, state, and NGO support, and coupled with health and medical services, the program reduced homelessness by 35% between 2008 and 2019.
France
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the population increased at a rate previously unknown, the rural exodus increased, while war damage had reduced the number of houses in many cities. Rental prices dramatically rose, and the government made a law in 1948 to block them, effectively ending the economic benefits of housing investment. Rents were gradually deregulated until debate in the 1980s led to the current rental law of 1989 theoretically balancing landlord and tenant relations. However, there was a major homelessness crisis in the winter of 1953–4 and the necessary laws were gradually mobilized producing high levels of construction almost continuously from the 1960s. Social landlords were a major source of expertise as well as construction actors with links to national and local bodies. The construction industry was at the time inadequate so political support was needed.
It is incorrect to refer to French social housing as public housing. The origins of French social housing lie in the private sector, with the first State aid provided to limited-profit companies by the in 1793. The originally socialist idea was promoted by some French employers in the 2nd half of the 19th century. Public housing companies followed before World War I. There are still different social housing movements, public, private and some cooperative. Social landlord organizations all have similar regulation and similar access to government loans but there are significant differences.
The government launched a series of major construction plans, including the creation of
new town
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
s () and new suburbs with
HLM
An habitation à loyer modéré (HLM, , ), is a form of low-income housing in France, Algeria, Senegal, and Quebec. It may be public or private, with rent subsidies.
HLMs constitute 16% of all housing in France.the legal means to acquire the land and could provide some advantages to the companies that then built its huge housing complexes of hundreds of apartments. Quality was also effectively regulated, resulting in decent or even top quality housing for the standard of the 1950s and 1960s. The construction of HLMs were subject to much political debate. Much smaller developments are now the norm. This housing is now generally referred to as , a slightly wider sphere than just housing.
France still retains this system, a recent law making it an obligation for every town to have at least 20% HLM. Nowadays HLM represents roughly half of the rental market (46% in 2006). Social housing is not all for disadvantaged people who are just one of the target groups. Part of the funding can be provided by employer-employee groups to provide housing for local employees. The 20% target can include intermediate housing for better off groups, although its object is to produce social mix. Gentrification and the very basis of social housing allocation are divisive issues as well as the extent of local control of housing. This housing has always been a multi-actor activity and recent local government reorganization continues to change the political landscape.
While they succeeded in giving lower-income families a place to live in the drive to provide popular housing, this system also led to the creation of suburban ghettos, with a problem of disrepair. There has been a long-term problem of gradual impoverishment of social tenants There, deprived strata of the population, mostly of immigrant origin and suffering massive under-employment, might in the past have been left to simmer away from the more affluent urban centres, sometimes becoming rife with social tensions and violence. This affects a minority of social housing but has a high profile and still produces serious tension.
Tackling this problem at its roots is all but simple, and social mix policies can break up populations seen as difficult by redevelopment. This has not had the hoped for results. It has also been sought to resolve the problem of access to the system by disadvantaged people by a new system where certain groups can apply to court to be housed if refused, the "right to housing". This tends to intensify the controversy over social housing allocation, who should be housed. The French tradition of 'universal' social housing allocation – housing for everyone is called into question by
EU competition law
European competition law is the competition law in use within the European Union. It promotes the maintenance of competition within the European Single Market by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies to ensure that they do not crea ...
restricting subsidy except for the disadvantaged. In any event, the system is certainly effective in producing construction, although not with the excesses seen in the recent credit crunch elsewhere.
Germany
Between 1925 and 1930 Germany was the site of innovative and extensive municipal public housing projects, mostly in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, Hamburg,
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
and
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
. These housing estates (), were made necessary by the dreadful living conditions of pre-war urban tenements. The right to healthy housing was written into the 1919
Weimar Constitution
The Constitution of the German Reich (german: Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs), usually known as the Weimar Constitution (''Weimarer Verfassung''), was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic era (1919–1933). The c ...
, but few homes were built until the economy stabilised in 1925.
The new German housing estates were low-rise, no more than five stories, and in suburban settings. Residents were provided access to light, air, and sun. The size, shape, orientation and architectural style of Germany's public housing were informed by the recent experience of the Viennese, the Dutch, the anti-urban Garden City Movement in Britain, the new industrialized mass-production and pre-fabrication building techniques, the novel use of steel and glass, and by the progressive-liberal policies of the Social Democrats.
In 1930 in the industrial city of , the ('Houses with Balcony Access') were designed by
Bauhaus
The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...
director for a
housing cooperative
A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Housing cooperatives are a distinc ...
that wanted apartments it could let for no more than a quarter of the occupant's income. Working on a tight budget inspired money and space saving innovations, such as using balcony walkways for access to the apartments rather than having internal corridors and clever use of the internal space in the apartments.
Architects , and others built the
Berlin Modernism Housing Estates
Berlin Modernism Housing Estates (german: Siedlungen der Berliner Moderne) is a World Heritage Site designated in 2008, comprising six separate subsidized housing estates in Berlin. Dating mainly from the years of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933 ...
, now a
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
, consisting of thousands of homes built in and around Berlin, including the
Horseshoe Estate
The Hufeisensiedlung ("Horseshoe Estate") is a housing estate in Berlin, built in 1925–33. It was designed by architect Bruno Taut, municipal planning head and co-architect Martin Wagner, garden architect Leberecht Migge and Neukölln gardens ...
(named for its shape), and ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' estate (named after a local restaurant). In Frankfurt the architect lead the New Frankfurt public housing project, in which over 12,000 apartments were built 1925–1930. May ran his own sizable research facility to investigate, for instance, air-flow in various floorplan configurations, construction techniques, etc. The Austrian architect applied the principles of
Taylorism
Scientific management is a theory of management that Analysis, analyzes and wikt:synthesis#Noun, synthesizes workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially Workforce productivity, labor productivity. It was one of the ...
to the kitchen workspace and developed the Frankfurt kitchen while working for .
Beyond technical research May also published two magazines and embarked on a significant public-relations project, with films and classes and public exhibitions, to make acceptable to the public. In the late 1920s the principles of equal access to ('light, air and sun') and the social effects of a state-guaranteed ("minimum subsistence level") became a matter of lively popular debate all over Germany. One indirect result of this publicity was the American housing movement: a young
Catherine Bauer
Catherine Krouse Bauer Wurster (May 11, 1905 – November 21, 1964) was an American public housing advocate and educator of city planners and urban planners. A leading member of the "housers," a group of planners who advocated affordable housi ...
attended one of May's conferences in 1930, and wrote her influential book ''Modern Housing'' (1934) based on research done in Frankfurt and with Dutch architect .
Increasing pressure from the rising
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
brought this era to an end in 1933. A majority of the German public housing experts had social democrat or communist sympathies and were forced out of the country.
In
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
, the communist administration built monolithic apartment blocks and estates. Most new residential buildings from the 1960s onward were built in this style, as it was a quick and relatively cheap way to solve the country's severe housing shortage, which had been caused by wartime bombing raids and the large influx of German refugees from further east.
Hungary
(short form: ) is the name of a type of block of flats (
panel building
Panel buildings may refer to buildings of one of the following types:
*Built of structural insulated panels
*Built of pre-fabricated concrete blocks, named differently in various countries.
*Large Panel System building, often called Plattenbau ...
s) in
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
flat
Flat or flats may refer to:
Architecture
* Flat (housing), an apartment in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and other Commonwealth countries
Arts and entertainment
* Flat (music), a symbol () which denotes a lower pitch
* Flat (soldier), ...
s were built in Hungary. About 2 million people, about one fifth of the country's total population, live in these flats. The Hungarian government and local municipalities began a renovation program during the 2000s. In the program they have insulated these buildings, replaced the old doors and windows with multi-layer thermo glass, renewed the heating system and colored the buildings in a more pleasant way.
Ireland
In Ireland, public housing and halting sites (sites used by semi-nomadic
Traveller
Traveler(s), traveller(s), The Traveler(s), or The Traveller(s) may refer to:
People Generic terms
*One engaged in travel
*Explorer, one who searches for the purpose of discovery of information or resources
*Nomad, a member of a community withou ...
communities) have been built by local authorities and are known as
Local Authority Accommodation
Local Authority Accommodation is the name given to a form of Public housing provided in Ireland by various County Councils and City Corporations along with Urban District Councils. In Dublin, the most notable and visible example of local author ...
.
Dublin Corporation
Dublin Corporation (), known by generations of Dubliners simply as ''The Corpo'', is the former name of the city government and its administrative organisation in Dublin since the 1100s. Significantly re-structured in 1660-1661, even more sign ...
and the former Dublin County Council provided the lion's share of Irish local authority housing, with
County Longford
County Longford ( gle, Contae an Longfoirt) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Longford. Longford County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county was 46,6 ...
having the largest ratio of local authority to private housing in the state.
Large-scale social housing was erected in the 1930s and 1960s, with both cases following
slum clearance
Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal strategy used to transform low income settlements with poor reputation into another type of development or housing. This has long been a strategy for redeveloping urban communities; ...
. Critics argue that the National Building Agency focused too much on housing delivery, and failed to deliver retail and other services.
The government has promoted tenant purchase on favourable terms, and many former social housing areas are now completely or almost completely privately owned. Housing associations, or independent, nonprofit charities, now play a significant role in rental social housing provision. As the Irish state's ability to borrow is diminished government policy favours an increased role for private financing of housing associations instead of capital grants for local authorities. Ireland currently faces a severe shortage of social and council housing, and is experiencing a housing and homelessness crisis.
Netherlands
In the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, the rent for the cheaper rental homes is kept low through governmental oversight and regulation. These types of homes are known as .
In practice this is accomplished by non-profit private housing foundations or associations (). Due to frequent mergers the number of these organizations dropped to around 430 by 2009. They manage 2.4 million dwellings. The majority of the low-rent apartments in the Netherlands are owned by such organisations. Since the policy changed in 1995 the social housing organizations have become financially independent, focusing on their role as social entrepreneurs. In most Dutch municipalities there came to exist a certain minimum capacity of social housing throughout the last decades. In many cities such as
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
,
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
,
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
and
Utrecht
Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
the percentage of social housing approaches or even passes 50 percent. The public (financial) supervision is done by the central fund for housing ().
The Dutch housing policy is based on a concept of universal access to affordable housing for all and the prevention of segregation. As of 2020, the Dutch government is attempting to build 10,000 housing units for the homeless, by 2022. There is a Homeownership Guarantee Fund to support the National Mortgage Guarantee, which provides access to finance and purchase owner-occupied housing.
Romania
The skyline of many Romanian cities became dominated by standardized apartment blocks under the former communist government's policy of tower bloc construction. Beginning in 1974, systematization consisted largely of the demolition and reconstruction of existing villages, towns, and cities, in whole or in part, with the stated goal of turning Romania into a "multilaterally developed socialist society". In 2012, 2.7 million flats date from the communist period, accounting for 37% of total housing in Romania and for about 70% in cities and towns. Subsequent to post-communist privatization, the homeownership rate in this form of housing reached of 99.9%. The new Home Owner Associations (HOAs) were challenged internally by the cumulative effect of defaulting contributions, lack of affordability and the established practice of casual resident service in HOAs, which often triggered mismanagement. On the other hand, HOAs were challenged from outside by non-effective mechanisms to address their internal problems, such as non-existent fast court procedures against defaulting, poor financial assistance to socially disadvantaged households and a private sector unprepared to take on condominium management.
Spain
Spaniards' reluctance to home rental, and government spending cuts in the 1980s, reduced rented public housing in Spain to a minimum. Rented public houses were relatively common in the
Franco era
Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spa ...
(1939–75). With the advent of
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
and the 1978 Constitution, the right to housing became guaranteed, and the management of social housing depended mostly on the
autonomous regions
An autonomous administrative division (also referred to as an autonomous area, entity, unit, region, subdivision, or territory) is a subnational administrative division or internal territory of a sovereign state that has a degree of autonomy— ...
. This resulted in a wide variety of laws, which make the issue highly dependent on the region.
In spite of this, a scheme for (VPO) has been widely used, consisting of local councils allowing for building contractors and developers to build in public sites or with public loans on condition that a certain percentage of apartments remain subsidized and under control of the local authorities. This is known as ('privately developed'), as opposed to the ('publicly developed'), in which the whole property is owned and managed by a government authority. Publicly developed housing is made almost exclusively for owner-occupation, not rent, and made up 11% of the housing stock in 2010.
A new plan () was put forward by the government, aiming to make near a million homes available for public housing, relying both on new construction and refurbishment of unused houses.
Major parts of Spanish cities have been expanded in the last 20 years with projects heavily dependent on public and collective housing projects, which has stressed its importance inside the main architecture schools, that have answered the challenge with the development of several specialized courses and formation plans, such as the Madrid UPM – ETH Zurich combined MCH Master in Collective Housing.
Sweden
Swedish public housing is called , and consists mostly of flats owned by the local council. Unlike its counterparts in Great Britain, for instance, the Swedish Public Housing has never had any income restrictions. Instead, for large parts of the period between 1920 and 1990 (for instance, during the era of
Million Programme
The Million Programme ( sv, Miljonprogrammet) was an ambitious public housing program implemented in Sweden between 1965 and 1974 by the governing Swedish Social Democratic Party to ensure the availability of affordable, high quality housing t ...
), the public housing companies such as were the major operators in housing projects as well as in projects aiming to acquire old and worn down buildings. Although not carrying out housebuilding nor acquisition projects in recent times, the policies lead to a ubiquitous presence of publicly owned buildings throughout the cities of Sweden, including attractive urban areas, with a rather wide range of income among the tenants.
Policies carried out in the Swedish cities throughout the first decade of the 21st century have led to the tenants of public housing having bought the publicly owned buildings in which they live, which in turn has led to a significant decrease of publicly owned buildings in attractive urban areas.
Slovakia and Czechia
Forms of housing projects may vary in
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
and
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
housing estate
A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country.
Popular throughout the United States a ...
s (, ) was an important part of building plans in the former Czechoslovakia. The government wanted to provide large quantities of fast and affordable housing and to slash costs by employing uniform designs over the whole country. They also sought to foster a "collectivist nature" in people. People living in these housing projects can either usually own their
apartment
An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ma ...
s or rent them, usually through a private landlord. There's usually a mix of
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
es in these housing projects.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom public housing is often referred to by the British public as "
council housing
Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...
" and "council estates", based on the historical role of district and borough councils in running public housing. Mass council house building began in about 1920 in order to replace older and dilapidated properties. This followed the 1919 'Addison' Act and the provison of central state subsidies; some local authority or municipal housing was provided before 1914.
Housing was a major policy area under Wilson's Labour government, 1964 to 1970, with an accelerated pace of new building, as there was still a great deal of unfit housing needing replacement. Tower blocks, first built in the 1950s, featured prominently in this era. The proportion of council housing rose from 42% to 50% of the nation's housing total,A Short History of the Labour Party by Alastair J. Reid and Henry Pelling while the number of council homes built increased steadily, from 119,000 in 1964 to 133,000 in 1965 and to 142,000 in 1966.
Allowing for demolitions, 1.3 million new homes were built between 1965 and 1970. To encourage home ownership, the government introduced the Option Mortgage Scheme (1968), which made low-income house buyers eligible for subsidies (equivalent to tax relief on mortgage interest payments). This scheme had the effect of reducing housing costs for buyers on low incomes.Capitalism and public policy in the UK by Tom Burden and Mike Campbell
Since the 1970s, non-profit
housing association
In Ireland and the United Kingdom, housing associations are private, Non-profit organization, non-profit making organisations that provide low-cost "Public housing in the United Kingdom, social housing" for people in need of a home. Any budge ...
s have been operating an increasing share of social housing properties in the United Kingdom. From 1996 they have also been known as Registered Social Landlords (RSLs), and public housing has been referred to as "social housing" to encompass both councils and RSLs. Despite being non-profit based, RSLs generally charge higher rents than councils. However, the Westminster Government introduced a "rent re-structuring" policy for housing associations in England in 2002, which aimed to bring council and RSL rents into line in England by 2012. Local planning departments may require private-sector developers to offer "affordable housing" as a condition of
planning permission
Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...
( section 106 agreement). This accounts for another £700m of Government funding each year for tenants in part of the United Kingdom. As of 2012, Housing Associations are now also referred to as "Private Registered Providers of Social Housing" (PRPs).
Local authorities have been discouraged from building council housing since 1979 following the election of Conservative leader
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
as prime minister. The Parker Morris standard was abolished for those that were built, resulting in smaller room sizes and fewer facilities. The Right to Buy was introduced, resulting in the move of some of the best stock from public tenanted to private owner occupation.
Since the year 2000, "choice-based lettings" (CBL) have been introduced to help ensure social housing was occupied speedily as tenants moved. This can still favour the local over the non-local prospective tenant. In a number of local authority areas, due to the shortage of council housing, three out of four properties may be designated for priority cases (those living in poor overcrowded conditions, with medical or welfare needs, or needing family support) or homeless applicants in order to meet the councils' legal obligations to rehouse people in need. The percentage of properties set aside for vulnerable groups will vary dependent on the demand for council housing in the area. All local authorities have a Housing Strategy to ensure that council houses are let fairly and fulfil the council's legal obligations; deal with people in need; and contribute to sustainability of housing estates, neighbourhood regeneration, and social inclusion.
The 1997–2010 Labour Government wished to move council housing away from local authority management. At first, this was through Large Scale Voluntary Transfers (LSVT) of stock from councils to Housing Associations (HAs). Not all council property could be transferred, as in some local authorities, their housing stock was in poor condition and had a capital value less than the remaining debts from construction costs—in effect, the council stock was in negative equity. In some local authority areas, the tenants rejected the transfer option.
The Labour Government introduced a "third way": the
Arms Length Management Organisation
In the United Kingdom, an arms-length management organisation (ALMO) is a not-for-profit company that provides housing services on behalf of a local authority. Usually an ALMO is set up by the authority to manage and improve all or part of its ho ...
(ALMO), where the housing stock stays with the Local Authority but is managed by a not-for-profit organisation at arm's length from the Local Authority. It also introduced the Decent Homes programme, a capital fund to bring social housing up to a modern physical standard. To use this fund, the manager, whether ALMO or HA, had to achieve a 2 or 3 star rating from its inspection by the Audit Commission. This was intended to drive up management standards. Council landlords cannot access this funding, another incentive to transfer management of council housing to an ALMO or HA.
Governments since the early 1990s have also encouraged "mixed tenure" in regeneration areas and on "new-build" housing estates, offering a range of ownership and rental options, with a view to engineering social harmony through including "social housing" and " affordable housing" options. A recent research report has argued that the evidence base for tenure mixing remains thin. Social housing occupants may be stigmatised and forced to use a
poor door
A "poor door" is a separate entrance in a multi-unit housing development for those living in less expensive apartments.
Description
The term was coined by the local news site West Side Rag in August 2013, where it was used to describe a new dev ...
that is separate and less convenient than the door the unsubsidised occupants use and social housing may be less desirably situated.
After the adoption of
austerity
Austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three primary types of austerity measures: higher taxes to fund spend ...
policies in 2010 the traditional "safety net" model was maintained by the devolved administrations like the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies.
Most UK social housing tenants have the right to swap homes with another tenant even if their landlords are different. This is called a "
mutual exchange
The term mutual exchange describes the ability of two (or more) tenants in the public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although th ...
". As of 2017, in England, local authorities can destinate homeless households in local tenancies, whereas in Scotland social housing remained the first chosen policy. According to the
Museum of Homelessness
The Museum of Homelessness (abbreviated to MoH) is a community-driven social justice museum, based in London, and created and run by people with direct experience of homelessness.
The museum was established in 2014 by husband and wife team Matt ...
, in 2020 the UK recorded at least 976 deaths among homeless people. In 2019 England and Wales estimated 778 deaths with an increase of 7.2% on the previous year.
Former Soviet Union
In the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, most of the houses built after World War II were usually 3–5 stories high, with small apartments. In these boroughs, the goal was saving space and creating as many apartments as possible. Construction starting in the 1970s favored 9- and 16-story concrete panel municipal housing in major cities, 7–12 stories in smaller urban areas. These housing projects are still used in some countries, especially in countries in
central and eastern Europe
Central and Eastern Europe is a term encompassing the countries in the Baltics, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Southeast Europe (mostly the Balkans), usually meaning former communist states from the Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact in Europe. ...
, and most of them are slowly being renovated.
Oceania
Australia
Public housing in Australia is provided by departments of state governments, with funding provided by both the state and federal government. There are over 300,000 public housing dwellings in Australia, consisting of low-density housing on master-planned estates located in suburban areas, and also inner-city high-rise apartments in Melbourne and Sydney.
In recent decades, rooming and relief housing for the homeless has been privatised, and in recent years this housing has been sold off to avoid maintenance costs and capitalise on sales in a booming property market. In Melbourne, public housing stocks have been in decline for some time, sparking the recent
Bendigo street housing campaign
The 2016 Bendigo Street housing dispute concerned a series of occupations of houses in Collingwood, Melbourne, Australia. The properties were owned by the Victorian Government which had made aborted plans to construct the East West Link road. ...
in which homeless people are being housed by the community campaign in homes left empty by the state government.
New Zealand
Private companies (such as the New Zealand Company) which fostered early organised European settlement in
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
constructed
immigration barracks
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
to serve as temporary accommodation for their new arrivals.
The Workers' Dwellings Act of 1905 resulted in the Government of New Zealand commissioning the building of 646 houses.
In 1937 the
First Labour Government
The first MacDonald ministry of the United Kingdom lasted from January to November 1924. The Labour Party, under Ramsay MacDonald, had failed to win the general election of December 1923, with 191 seats, although the combined Opposition tall ...
launched a major public-housing system—it became known as "state housing"—for citizens unable to afford private rents. Most state housing built between 1937 and the mid-1950s consisted of detached two-to-three-bedroom cottage-style houses; only 1.5% of state houses in 1949 formed part of apartment blocks, all of them in
Auckland
Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...
or in greater
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...
. After World War II ended in 1945, most
local authorities
Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...
also started providing social housing, mainly for elderly people with low incomes.
Housing estate
A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country.
Popular throughout the United States a ...
Subsidized housing
Subsidized housing is government sponsored economic assistance aimed towards alleviating housing costs and expenses for impoverished people with low to moderate incomes. In the United States, subsidized housing is often called "affordable housin ...
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Subsidized housing in the United States
In the United States, subsidized housing is administered by federal, state and local agencies to provide subsidized rental assistance for low-income households. Public housing is priced much below the market rate, allowing people to live in mor ...
Sídlisko
Sídlisko is a term used in Slovak () which mainly means housing estate. Other terms associated with this term are housing project, housing estate, settlement, or neighbourhood. In these housing projects, apartment buildings are built in the most ...
Welfare state
A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitabl ...
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Tavros
Tavros ( el, Ταύρος, which means "bull"), is a suburb in the southwestern part of the Athens agglomeration, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Moschato-Tavros, of which it is a municipal unit.
Geo ...