By Marine Perrio, IEECP (with notes shared by participating partners from Fraunhofer ISI and UCL).
At this eceee summer study, various sessions were organised on energy as well as transport / mobility poverty, and the links with gender. Yet, some aspects were not covered to look at vulnerability with a broader scope, including digital poverty, public health and labour mobility.
HouseInc organised a workshop to present an overview of the new Horizon Europe project and discuss thoughts and experiences with researching housing inequalities, definitions of various poverty dimensions and marginalised groups as well as future challenges for (successful) policies tackling housing inequalities and promoting a just transition.
The main goal was to hear from the audience how they would define housing inequality / marginalised groups and vulnerability, how we can integrate them successfully in research, especially with assessing various poverty dimensions (energy, mobility/transport, etc. – should we consider each dimension alone or together?).
After introducing the project and work it will do in the coming 2.5 years, the first exchange started around the agreement that there is no clear definition of housing inequality (or very different ones). How do you match it with housing vulnerability?
The common elements participants agreed are associated with housing inequality were:
- No element of choice of where you live.
- Discrimination in the access to housing (e.g. against Roma (from Romanians) and racism (names, origins) preventing access to housing (even when the income fits!).
- Poor access to the housing market – in terms ofaffordability.
- Quality of housing (ventilation, building material that does not cause health problems, etc.).
- No access to long-term and stable living (ownership vs renting and mobility poverty – being stuck in a house with no option for change). Questions arose such as what is the minimum level to define equality, should everyone own a home? How do you define decent housing?
- No access to “safe” housing, in terms of e.g., meeting fire regulations for the building, of options when experiencing domestic violence without possibility to escape, location in criminal/unsafe areas, without lighting.
- Affordability and sizing (no overcrowding).
Participants mentioned other aspects the project could look at, such as energy equity, the care economy and infrastructure around the housing (if you’re pushed outside the city, there is often no care option, transport is scarce or takes long, taking time and income away, etc.), domestic violence… They concluded that approaches need to be integrated, e.g. consider energy and transport poverty together for instance, and look at housing including the built environment surround it.
A question remained; can we achieve housing equality? What would be the definition for it?
Where does housing inequality stand in comparison wiht energy poverty?
Housing inequality underpins many aspects on top of energy poverty: the lack of access to digitalisation, education, housecare, food insecurity (access to healthy – or cultural food), the indoor quality of the house. How do we measure these? Do people need to tick all the boxes? Participants discussed that housing inequality is always relative but there can be thresholds. Related questions were raised: What is the standard in society? What decreases housing inequality? What decreases poverty?
Marginalised communities: who is included?
We then asked participants to brainstorm on who should be included into marginalised communities, especially in the context of housing inequality. We mentioned the ones considered in the HouseInc project – 4 marginalised communities in Europe (Roma communities (in Czech Republic and Romania) as well as Ukrainian refugees (in Italy) and migrants from Eastern Europe (in Germany).
Participants mentioned discriminated groups, for their origins / skin colour, political opinions, gender, age, profession (sex workers). The discussion considered also single parents, even more so when they are migrants and the need to consider intersectionality. People fleeing domestic violence, living in shelters or homeless. It was mentioned that the context is key: where to live as elderly – how to afford a decent housing when retirement money is low?
Finally, participants discussed the other aspects that could/should be included/ thought about when working on housing inequality.
For instance, when considering tackling energy poverty, smart meters and appliances can be considered, yet they can be seen as not trustable and invasive (privacy concerns), in a lack of education and/or trust, as well as instruments of oppression. Gender should be taken into account: care work and heavy household chores’ weight on women, access to childcare, house with garden for children to play outside, etc. The fact that women live longer should also be accounted. What is the role of social housing? We also mentioned that when considering housing inequality, we could look at the issue the other way around, going from wealthier residents pushing away poorer ones outside the city centres – where they often work, in the effect of gentrification.
A good tip for the project – and its ongoing survey development, is to ask people what they feel able / unable to in their housing situation.
We will investigate the drivers of housing inequality and share results in the coming months.
As a reminder, HouseInc aims to map extant solutions, tackling housing inequalities under 3 perspectives:
- Affordability: financial solutions or innovative business models,
- Sustainability: technical/technological and digital solutions,
- Inclusivity: social innovations.
