How Urban Planning Instruments Can Contribute in the Fight against Homelessness
This paper reviews the role of urban planning in ensuring the provision of adequate affordable housing through the method of ‘inclusionary housing’, and considers its potential as a tool in the prevention and solution of homelessness. The approach was first developed in the United States, and requires that a given share of new housing has to be affordable to low- and moderate-income households.
Description
Homelessness is a complex problem involving much more than a
shortage of affordable housing. There is a wide range of other
contributing factors such as economic, employment, psychological,
relational and institutional crises, low levels of social
protection, the breakdown of the family and loss of friends, family
and social networks etc. However, a sufficient supply of affordable
housing, although not the solution to the problem, is an absolutely
vital requirement for preventing, tackling and minimising the
problem of homelessness, particularly in weak welfare states with
low levels of affordable housing and a large homeless population.
Inclusionary housing can contribute to the fight against
homelessness.
Inclusionary housing consists of establishing a certain percentage
of affordable dwellings (for sale or to let) in new residential
development projects at prices below market rates, for lower-income
households. There are three key economic reasons for supplying
affordable housing through urban planning: it improves the
distribution of resources that govern public intervention, it helps
counter the problems of economic accessibility to housing, and it
taxes the enrichment of land owners who see the value of their
property increase only as a result of urban planning. It
furthermore improves the social mix in the city, thereby avoiding
segregation and the concentration of poverty.
Recommendations
This article argues for the adoption of this system, which is not very well developed in Europe yet. However, it could have highly beneficial effects, especially in Southern European and new Member States where the welfare and housing systems are least developed. Examples of the implementation of this policy in several European states is assessed, upon which several recommendations are formulated:
- the system should be flexible, allowing for in-lieu fees or off-site construction;
- coordination between different levels of governments is important;
- the actors involved should be adequately trained;
- urban planning legislation should promote new urban development
and renewal operations.
Publication date
Type of document
Policy document
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