Metropolitan Research Institute

Metropolitan Research Institute, Budapest

Housing policy

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.

Seminar on the application of the Social Rental Enterprise (SRE) Model – June 19-21, 2017 – Budapest, Hungary

In the framework of the HomeLab project a short, two-day long seminar was hosted by MRI exploring the development and possible application of the SRE model in Hungary and Greece. The Greek partner present was Gabriel Amitsis, Social Security Law Professor at the Athens University of Applied Sciences. Housing Europe facilitated the organisation of the seminar, and Edit Lakatos, the policy officer in charge of facilitating the event was present.

In the framework of the seminar two short field trips were conducted – one to visit the social housing experiment of Veszprém headed by the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta, a HomeLab partner – and one to visit the innovative housing service provided by ULE (From Street to Home Association – another HomeLab partner) that focuses on providing social, housing and employment services to homeless people.

The lessons from the field trips were debated at the premises of MRI, as well as possible ways of cooperation were discussed.

Read the full report about the seminar at Housing Europe’s website.

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.

The effect of GFC on tenure choice – the case of Hungary

The article “The effect of GFC on tenure choice in a post-socialist country – the case of Hungary”, co-authored by József Hegedüs (Metropolitan Research Institute), Adrienne Csizmady (Hungarian Academy of Sience) and Gyula Nagy (FHB Bank) was published in Issue 2, 2017 of International Journal of Housing Policy. The paper takes a look at the effect of the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) on housing tenure choice in a post-socialist setting, based on the case of Hungary. Central and Eastern European transition countries had a very predominant owner occupied sector  prior to the GFC, where owner occupied dwellings typically amounted to 85-95 percent of the housing stocks. The paper sets out to assess if stakeholders in the housing sector (households, government, banks, etc.) will learn from these experiences, and start showing a stronger preference and support for renting, which could result in a more balanced tenure structure and more stable housing system.

The full article is accessible on Taylor & Francis’s website.

PROFICIENT (2012-2016)

Client: Directorate General for Research and Innovation (European Commission)

Project duration: September 2012 – August 2016

PROFICIENT logo

This Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) funded research project had a very broad focus: on the one hand it concentrated on identifying the possibilities of establishing new collective-self organized residential complexes all over Europe, on the other hand it intended to define the circumstances under which residents of owner-occupied multi-unit buildings can implement the energy efficient renovation of their estates. The project has developed a website that assists the communities to go through either the construction or the renovation process. MRI was responsible for developing business models that would enable SMEs to be drivers of the construction or renovation process. The therefore project aimed at developing business models that focus on a special segment of the market, producing business and service products (e.g. e-market place) providing new business opportunities for SMEs in this segment, comprising

  • Collective self-organised housing (CSO), where the inhabitants have a major role in the decisions concerning construction or retrofitting thus even they have limited technical knowledge they are capable to express their ideas;
  • The business model is based on ESCO structure, building on performance guarantee;
  • The interventions focus on not only single buildings but on district level (neighbourhood) residential areas.

During the research process MRI was able to get acquainted with the establishment and operation of collective-self organized housing forms that are practically unknown in Hungary if we speak about new construction (part of this segment is co-housing that is quite common in some European countries, like Denmark), while it is the dominant form of housing if we speak about renovation as most of the multi-unit buildings are owner occupied in Hungary (while this is not the case in Western-Europe).

All the deliverables of the project can be found at: http://proficient-project.eu