Metropolitan Research Institute

Metropolitan Research Institute, Budapest

Social rental systems, social rental agencies

HomeLab: Integrated Housing and Labour Services in the Social Rental Enterprise Model (2016-2019)

Project duration: 2016 october – 2019 march

Client: Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) of the European Commission. 

MRI is the coordinator of HomeLab.

HomeLab aims to implement the Social Rental Entreprise (SRE) model in five pilot projects in four Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries ((CZ, HU, PL, SK). The pilots allow the adaptation of the model to the local circumstances in countries with varying social benefit and service provision systems, taking into account the differences in the institutional environment, housing systems and labour market conditions. Based on the experience the refinement of the SRE model will be developed for each pilot that will contribute to scaling up the results, to the possible adaptation of the model both on national and on EU level in order to ensure institutional and financial sustainability beyond the grant period. Furthermore, based on the synthesis of the national models EU level recommendations will be developed with regard to how the EU could support/promote the wider application of the SRE model in other Member States.

HomeLab: mobile homes under construction in Budapest

The construction of From Street to Home Association’s first two mobile homes is well under way – the work began on 30 March. The two mobile homes were delivered by truck to the building site in Soroksár, District 23 of Budapest. The Association’s colleagues, together with beneficiaries, professionals and volunteers have been working on connecting the units to the utility grids, and began installing insulation. A small selection of photos is published on the HomeLab website.

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.

TENLAW closing conference: pictures and presentations

The closing conference of _EU FP7 funded project TENLAW – Tenancy Law and Housing Policy in Multi-level Europe – took place in Budapest, Hungary on 17 and 18 September 2015, opened by project leader Christoph Schmid, and Mercator senior fellow / former EC Commissioner László Andor. The presentations held and photos taken at the conference are available here.