Metropolitan Research Institute

Metropolitan Research Institute, Budapest

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Affordable Housing in Central and Eastern Europe: Identifying and Overcoming Constraints in New EU Member States (2016-2017)

Project duration: December 2016 – September 2017

Client: European Housing Partnership (EHP)

Metropolitan Research Institute was involved in the project “Overcoming Obstacles to the Funding and Delivery of Affordable Housing Supply in European Cities”: as housing policy advocacy groups have been becoming increasingly aware of the structural differences of housing affordability challenges and possibilities in old and new EU member states, MRI was commissioned to lead an expert team on affordable housing challenges in the eleven new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe.

EHP consists of the representatives of five EU member states: Slovakia (coordinator), Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Slovenia; and two observers, the Czech Republic, and Sweden. Together with a number of cities, networks, NGOs and EU institutions, they contributed to the European Union’s shaping Urban Agenda. EHP is committed to promoting investment in affordable housing: finding good practice in funding and innovation, and also by identifying systemic challenges which constrain the growth of the sector. Scottish Cities Alliance’s working group, led by Professor Ken Gibb (University of Glasgow), investigated the Western European experience of these issues, while MRI leads the research on Central and Eastern European states.

The project focusing on CEE countries,  “Affordable Housing in Central and Eastern Europe: Identifying and Overcoming Constraints in New EU Member States”, is led by MRI’s senior researcher József Hegedüs. MRI’s own staff is supported by in-country experts Martin Lux (Czech Academy of Science), Anneli Kährik (Uppsala University), Richard Sendi (Urban Planning Institute of Slovenia), and Veronika Reháková of the project coordinator, the Ministry of Transport and Construction of Slovakia.

Private Rental Housing in Transition Countries – An Alternative to Owner Occupation?

The volume “Private Rental Housing in Transition Countries – An Alternative to Owner Occupation?” is set to be published by Palgrave-Macmillan in 2018, although the online version of the 17 thematic and country chapters are already available on the publisher’s website.

Edited by MRI staff members József Hegedüs and Vera Horváth, and prominent researcher of the Czech Academy of Science Martin Lux, the chapters authored by leading Central and East European researchers and housing policy experts takes a look at private rented housing in selected new EU member states and other transition countries – a topic scarcely researched to date, largely hidden in the informal economy, and consequently often invisible to official statistics.

Iván Tosics at the European Week of Regions – Lodz, Poland

Iván Tosics gave a presentation with the title „The role of the urban areas in the Cohesion Policy post 2020” in the Local Event of European Week of Regions and the Cities in Lodz on 20 September 2017. The conference was attended by representatives of the largest Polish cities.

Tosics’s presentation for the event is available on this link (pdf).

Anna Bajomi at the ECR Symposium, Nottingham

Metropolitan Research Institute’s colleague, Anna Bajomi, advisory board member of European Energy Poverty Observatory, presented about private tenants’ energy costs at the event of “Advances in fuel poverty research and practice: a pan-European early career researcher symposium” as a bursary of EEGA Charitable Trust.

Fifteen young researchers from all over Europe presented their current work related to energy poverty. Senior professionals also presented their research, including Philip Squire of New Zealand’s Sustainability Trust; Jade Krik introduced the Robin Hood Energy Company, launched and owned by Nottingham City Council; and Jamie-Leigh Ruse and Luke Garrett, presenting the results of  National Energy Action (NEA), a UK charity fighting fuel poverty. In the following two days, Bajomi is going to participate at the Annual Conference of NEA to learn about methods and approaches of tackling fuel poverty in the UK.

Social Housing under and ‘Unorthodox’ Regime in in Post-crisis Hungary

The article “Social Housing in Post-crisis Hungary: A Reshaping of the Housing Regime under ‘Unorthodox’ Economic and Social Policy”, authored by MRI Managing Director József Hegedüs is available on the website of Critical Housing Analysis.

Hungary stepped on a very specific path two years into the Global Financial Crisis and the recession in its wake, on which it replaced ‘traditional’ austerity programs with ‘unorthodox’ economic policy. This policy paradigm shift affected the emerging social housing policy in two respects. First, the mainstream approach to social problems related to worsening housing affordability (due to increased loan repayments and other cost items together with decreasing incomes) provided strong support for the middle class. Second, intervention toward low income households remained minimal, and served only to pacify political tensions. This dual approach characterized the policy of the government, and resulting shift in the social structure did not necessarily follow the direction policy makers intended. Programs aimed at the middle class were poorly targeted, and often helped the upper middle class the most, who again did not behave the way policy makers expected (which would have been increased consumption to stimulate economic growth). Programs aimed at low income groups rendered the social structure more rigid, decreased the chance of low income persons to escape from extreme poverty, and cemented the opportunity discrepancies between the rich and the poor. The most recent housing policy measures suggest that the mistakes committed in the 2000s will likely be repeated, and there are not measures in place which could correct their course.