May green policies lead to housing inequalities? This major question is investigated by the Horizon Europe ReHousIn project through the examples of 27 European cities among them large metropoles, but also middle sized and rural towns. After its first year the ReHousIn project is organizing its first Policy Labs in nine countries, among them in Budapest. The event, that took place on the 1st of April gathered Hungarian actors working on housing and green policies (energy efficient retrofitting, nature-based solutions and densification of urban areas). Through the presentations of the researchers at Metropolitan Research Institute the negative externalities of green investments, strongly experienced in Western European cities like green gentrification and renoviction, were showcased. The workshop in Hungary called the attention to several specificities of the Central European Region. The participants expressed their major concern that the weakness of green policies in Hungary seem to be more harmful to the socially excluded inhabitants than the possible negative effect of their implementation. It was also highly emphasized that due to the super ownership structure of the Hungarian housing stock social movements are much less quick and responsive than in European cities with high rate of rental units, which slows down gentrification and renoviction. On the other hand, Hungarian municipalities lack the tools to influence strongly the potential negative housing impacts of green investments, as they own less than 2.5% of the housing stock, and due to general centralization trends, they also have less and less financial resources and are crowded out from many fields of public policies.
