Social Housing: another French exception

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Social Housing another French exception?

• Christian Tutin
• Professor of economics
• University of Paris East (Créteil) and GIS Réseau
  Logement / Habitat
• Prepared for the
• Central and East European Workshop on Social
  Housing
• M.R.I. Budapest, 6-7th october 2008

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I Housing tenures and public delivery the
European diversity

• Social housing in Europe
• 22.5 millions housing units
• 10.5 of the total stock
• High degree of diversity
• - from 34 in NL (155/1,000 inhabitants)
• - to near zero (GR, EST)
• - France 18 (70/1,000 inhabitants)

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Where is  normality  ? Over 15 ? Between
5 and 10 ? Below 5 ?
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• Not only the weight of social housing (absolute
  or relative), but the combination of tenures
• Three patterns special cases
•  Mainstream  AUS, CZ, DK, FI, FR, SW PL
  (?) 
• - Moderate rate of owner-occupation
• - Strong social housing sector (gt12,5)
• - Non-residual private rental sector
•  Mediterranean  BUL, EST, GR, IT, PG, SP
  LUX BE
• -  Invasive  owner-occupation
• Inexistant social sector
• Residual private rental sector (? BE IT)

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 Eastern  HU, LIT, RO, SL, SV IRL -
Dominant home ownership - Residual social
housing sector - Representing a significant
part of the total rental sector Special cases 
NL, UK, GE
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• North-western  mainstream  group NL UK
• 17 millions units of social housing
• 77 of EUs social housing stock

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The relative weight of SH is inversely correlated
with national wealth
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2. How much  exceptionnal  is the French way ?

• Access to social housing a  generalist  model
  (as in Austria) a lot of countries more
  restrictive, but some more  opened  (DK, SW).
• Rent-fixing a cost-based system, like in most
  other countries.
• Ownership and control
• Shared between 2 groups of  registered social
  landlords 
• Public Offices (owned by local authorities)
•  Social firms for housing  (non
  profit-maximising companies)
• Offices ESH the so-called HLM sector (3,9
  millions units)

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• Plus  non registered  social land-lords
• So-called  mixed companies  (SEM), where local
  authorities are associated with private capital
  0,6 million units
• And another 0.3 million units directly owned by
  municipalities, the State or public firms.
• As in many other European countries, the
  decision-making has been more and more
  decentralised in the last 2 decades
• Building permits in 1982
• Distribution of loans and other state aids in
  2004.

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Main specificities

• The relative weight of private rental housing
• Housing types and location
• - High proportion of flats in multi-units
  buildings
• - High degree of spatial concentration
• Subsidies and funding
• - Direct (mainly below market interest rates)
  and indirect (fiscal) subsidies
• - A specific financial  circuit  for social
  housing, with
• A special savings booklet ( Livret A ) whose
  deposits are centralised and transformed by a
  public financial institution (the Caisse des
  Dépôts et Consignations CDC)
• outstanding deposits 125 billions
• annual loans for the HLM sector 6 billions
• An employers contribution to housing (the
  so-called   1 logement )
• - More recently (2004), a massive urban renewal
  program

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3. General trends in Europe towards
residualisation ?

• 3.1 The UK  containment , rather than
  residualisation
• Dualist or  polarized 
• Despite massive privatisations since 1981 (2.2
  millions units sold to tenants in UK), the
  British social stock remains the largest one in
  Europe (4.9 millions units in 2006 more than 5
  millions until 2003),
• representing the same proportion of the stock as
  in France

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• Really  residual 
• - Germany,
• - Ireland,
• - Eastern European countries (Hungary, )

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3-2 The Netherlands stabilisation
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3-3 France continous growth or smooth decline ?

• No decline of the social stock, either absolute
  or relative
• (on the contrary, slow but steady growth)
• Decline as a proportion of new constructions
  (from 24 to 16 between the 70s and 90s), but
  more than compensated by purchases, and higher
  demolitions in the private sector (till
  recently).

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Current debates and new trends

• Social housing under attack
• Doesnt house those it should
• Too much middle-class household (in fact, no more
  than 15)
• Not housing the poorest (persisting homelesness)
• On-going changes
• Reform in finance
• Privatisations (objective of 40 000 sales yearly)
• Future law (to be discussed in Parliament next
  week) will change rent regulation and security of
  tenure

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Conclusions

• The French case is not so  special 
• Surprisingly, France is very close from  main
  stream  North-Western European countries
• What lessons from the French experience ?
• - In a positive sense, the kind of funding
  system (use of private  guaranted  saved by a
  powerfull public financial institution)
• - In a negative sense, attention must be paid to
  the factors explaining the  suburb crisis 
  (physical design of buildings, excess of
  multi-family homes, obsolescence of big estates,
  spatial concentration)
• - In a dubitative way the limits of
  decentralised procedures lord-maires do not want
  very social housing may be only the state, in
  partnership with  civil society  actors, can
  address homelesness

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