-This is a repost of original article published by USAID
HFHI proudly announces 2 upcoming housing conferences this autumn.
The Europe Housing Forum (EHF) will be a four-day conference taking place between November 16 - 19, 2021.
The second REELIH Regional Conference, Scaling up energy efficiency renovations of multi-apartment buildings: Energy poverty alleviation in Eastern Europe, will be a part of the EHF 2021.
"The time has come for key decision-makers and stakeholders in the housing industry to cooperate to build a sustainable future for all and to bring the issue of decent housing to the forefront of the agenda in Europe"
Rick Hathaway, Vice President of Habitat for Humanity International EMEA
The second REELIH Regional Conference, organized by Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is focused on the energy efficiency of multi-apartment buildings and its further renovation with the goal to alleviate energy poverty of homeowners in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. The conversation about energy efficiency and housing equity built on its strength and relevance after the European Commission introduced its new initiative - the European Green Deal. Even though the implementing countries of the REELIH project are not part of the European Union, they are impacted, apart from the EU initiatives, through the Energy Community and its policies. Research initiatives, EU policies, community participation, financing models, and proper legislation will form 5 individual sessions hosted by HFHI and USAID. These topics are overlapping with those of the Energy and Sustainability track of EHF so we are going to have additional sessions during the Europe Housing Forum.
The Europe Housing Forum 2021 intends to create a space for housing experts from various NGOs, academia, technology companies, donor agencies, advocacy, urban planning, and architectural institutions to learn and collaborate to reach our common goal - to position housing as a key driver of sustainable cities as well as economic growth and to seek innovative solutions to the challenges of affordable housing.
The main objectives of the EHF are to connect leaders and experts to collaborate, inspire future projects and advocate for policies that promote inclusive, equitable, affordable, and sustainable housing.
Thanks to Hilti Foundation, Whirlpool Corporation, and Somfy Foundation, we have the opportunity to reward enterprises that contribute to affordable housing solutions in Europe. The winners will be announced in three categories: best public policies, best practices, and best technologies. Entries can be submitted online until September 12, 2021. Everyone is welcomed to participate and in case you know about a policy, practice, or technology that would be eligible for the award, please, do not hesitate to share this opportunity with them.
The Europe Housing Forum is bringing together housing experts to learn, collaborate and spotlight affordable and inclusive housing as the key factor of a sustainable future. We believe our Awards can motivate others to come up with innovative solutions to one of the most basic human needs - the need for shelter.
Help us share the word and stay tuned for more details!
Find out more about the event here,
about the REELIH Conference here,
Or follow the event on our Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn.
Renovation: Staying on top of the wave is a new publication by FEANTSA. In early December, 2020, FEANTSA organized a dedicated online roundtable where this new report, commissioned to Catrin Maby, Member of Welsh Government advisory group on housing decarbonisation and Member of British Standards Institute Retrofit Standards Task Group, was launched. During the event, Catrin Maby gave a presentation about the report. This presentation was followed by an open discussion, with contributions from Ciaran Cuffe, MEP from Group of the Greens, and Paula Rey-Garcia from the European Commission DG Energy - Energy Efficiency Unit. We would like to thank FEANTSA for organization of this event. We very much appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this discussion by our presence and to have a chance to put more light on REELIH project and the special case of privately owned multi-apartment buildings in Eastern Europe and the challenge they pose for energy efficiency retrofits and alleviating energy poverty.
This report is a continuation of FEANTSA's activities to contribute to the effective implementation of the Renovation Wave under the European Green Deal and to highlight the potential social risks associated with energy renovation programs.
"Low-income groups are most impacted by the climate crisis and energy poverty, and their needs must be addressed by the Renovation Wave going forward."
The report reflects upon the current situation in the EU where more than 50 million households experience energy poverty. It means that these households are not able to afford the energy they need to meet their basic households needs, such as heating, cooling, hot water, or domestic appliances. This is an issue resulting from energy inefficient buildings and appliances in a combination with low household incomes and high energy costs. FEATNSA, in this publication, provides a comprehensive analysis of different energy renovation and retrofit projects, with a particular focus on social element of this process.
FEANTSA defines a "win-win-win" scheme which should serve as a guiding principle when working on alleviation of energy poverty. The three wins are:
Assuring that all the three “wins” are met after the instalment of energy improvements in buildings is a challenging task and is affected by multiple factors. The aim of this report is to highlight the risks connected with the implementation of energy improvements so that all social groups benefit from the renovation works equally.
For the analysis, FEANTSA selected numerous examples to illustrate both positive and negative impacts and outcomes of energy projects. All of the examples are projects including energy improvements, but at the same time, not all of them are primarily focused on energy. One of the chapters is dedicated to projects which ended up having unintended negative impacts. In this way, FEANTSA was able to identify the risks connected with energy and renovation projects for future use. Lack of longer term monitoring and the evaluation of energy renovation programs, including their social impact, are identified as crucial step for more comprehensive understanding of complex renovation works.
REELIH project, provided by Habitat for Humanity International with a financial support from USAID, was identified by FEATNSA as one of the successful projects serving as an example of good practice. Our project is showcasing how to work on energy efficiency improvements in multi-apartment buildings with a high number of homeowners. According to FEANTSA, REELIH's emphasis on providing solutions for low-income households recognizes the social need that must be addressed. Our example is included in Chapter 3 on Programmes to support lower income home-owners to renovate, which presents a specific approach to housing energy renovation due to its specific support provided for low or medium income private home owners.
Based on the analysis of selected projects, FEANTSA was able to create lists of both positive and negative impacts of renovation works with an emphasis on social aspect.
Positive social impacts
Negative social impacts
For the final part of the report, FEANTSA prepared a set of recommendations for future projects based on their findings. Among their recommendations, you can find:
It is indeed a success for REELIH project to be presented as a good practice in yet another publication. We very much appreciate another FEANTSA's recognition of our project and USAID's financial support for this project, too.
Find more information about FEANTSA here.
Find more information about Renovation Wave here.
Find the fact sheet about Renovation Wave and the European Green Deal here.
There are no more doubts that our planet is in the state of climate emergency. With buildings being one of the biggest contributors to the climate change in Europe, it is our responsibility to come up with realizable ideas and to transfer them into functioning projects that will help meeting EU's energy efficiency targets and long-term goal under the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) to fully decarbonize it's buildings stock by 2050.
Renovation became crucial and its rate needs to increase to at least 2-3% of renovated building stock per year.
It is the European cities themselves who can significantly contribute to this renovation process. That is the main motivation for BUILD UPON2 project, funded by EU Horizon 2020 and led by World Green Building Council, to empower the cities across Europe to cooperate with national governments and industry to strengthen the overall local effectiveness and implementation of the national building renovation strategies required by the EPBD. To effectively accelerate the renovation process, the EU Member States are, apart from development of their renovation strategies, further required to set out specific roadmaps, including measurable progress indicators and milestones. BUILD UPON2 thus addresses one of the main barriers standing in the way of renovation process, being it the lack of an adequate, widely shared Impact Framework to track the renovation process and its implementation.
This pilot framework includes a suite of milestones and measurable progress indicators for city renovation strategies. It will monitor indicators such as the emissions reductions, increased employment and improved health. During the project, these data are captured locally in the chosen cities. At a national level, the framework is supposed to link renovation to policy and decision making process, leading to greater investments in renovation. Developed methodology by the project also indicates:
Testing of the Framework will be realized in 8 pilot cities, each located in different European country:
GBC España is the main Coordinator of the project accompanied by a think tank Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE) and the municipal network Climate Alliance which leads the Covenant of Mayors Office-Europe. The consortium of eight national Green Building Councils consists of:
Success of this project should serve as a motivation and a "know-how" for cities around Europe to transform their national renovation strategies into more local city strategies to achieve the goal of the EU to completely decarbonize its building stock by 2050. For now, the goal of BUILD UPON2 is to motivate and see at least 10 more cities committing to establish their own strategies by 2021. For future instances, the developed Framework should become a cornerstone of and an inspiration for any building renovation process not only within the area of the European Union.
Find more information about WGBC here.
Find more information about BUILD UPON2 project and its partners here.
The last week of June traditionally belongs to the biggest event dedicated to energy efficiency and renewables in Europe – EU Sustainable Energy Week. 15th time organized Sustainable Energy Week took place not as usual in Brussels, but online between June 22 and 26, 2020. It was accompanied by Policy Conference, EUSEW Awards, Energy Days, networking activities, side events and for the first time, EUSEW introduced the European Youth Energy Day.
This is the biggest European conference dedicated to topics of renewables and energy efficiency. The sessions are organized by the European Commission and energy stakeholders. Their focus is on sustainable energy issues, new policy developments, best practices and sustainable energy ideas.
The discussion went much around the European Green Deal and its Renovation Wave initiative which becomes even more crucial in the uncertain times of coronavirus crisis. Due to the current situation, the Renovation Wave will serve not only as an initiative boosting current low renovation rates but will become a means to support recovery process after the crisis, too.
We drive your attention toward one of the EUSEW's sessions
which talks about the specificities and potential of CEE countries for recovery and the transformation to a zero-carbon economy. Simultaneously, the session is directed to local and regional authorities interested in examples of good practice in this region.
Take the chance and check out more of EUSEW2020's interesting sessions available on EUSEW youtube channel:
the European Climate Pact is an initiative under the European Green Deal aiming to engage citizens and communities in action for greener Europe. The session provides inspiration on how a dialogue can be built between different stakeholders and sectors
The EUSEW Secretariat stands behind the EUSEW Awards together with the Technical Advisory Committee which brings together experts from different fields of sustainable energy. They then decide for the winning initiatives in different categories. Most common initiatives that apply for EUSEW Awards consist of citizen-led sustainable energy-awareness programs, public schemes promoting energy-saving buildings, and private companies leading the way in green tech and carbon-neutral manufacturing.
This year, EUSEW Awards had three categories - Innovation, Youth, and Engagement. Additionally, there were winners of Women in Energy Award, the Eastern Partnership Award and the Citizens' Award.
Energy Days – an opportunity for all to contribute. These days take place between May and June and can be held anywhere within the region of the European Union. It can be any digital activity or an event organized by local public or private organization which is non-profit and aims to attract the public to promote clean energy and energy efficiency. Just check out the map of Energy Days across Europe.
This was the first time this event took place during EUSEW. A special concept invited young enthusiastic EU citizens aged between 18 - 30 to talk about their visions on Europe’s energy future, to present their ideas on innovation and views on European Green Deal. This was a unique opportunity for European youth to meet and build a dialogue among themselves as well as with Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice-President of the European Green Deal, who was personally involved in the discussions. This event shall serve as a starting point of new collaboration and implementation of many great ideas, connecting young experts from different fields who are determined to make the European continent carbon-neutral and number one in the process.
Find more information about EUSEW2020 here.
Find all online sessions recorded here.
ASSIST is currently in its final project stage and to share their experiences and knowledge, they organized a three day final online conference. The fruitful discussion and enriching presentations about energy poverty took place online between 9 and 11 June, 2020. During the final conference, ASSIST presented on their successful multidisciplinary strategy to tackle energy poverty in Europe and the implementation of a holistic approach. The conference was wrapped up by introducing of ASSIST’s final document – policy framework paper to tackle energy poverty.
A crucial point of the project was the development of in-depth knowledge on consumer vulnerability and contribution to the development of a unique definition of energy poverty for its identification and measuring in future. Thanks to these activities and combined results with specific policy orientation tasks, national and European stakeholders are a step closer to measure household energy needs and target energy efficiency measures to low-income households living in energy inefficient buildings.
The final conference was held online due to coronavirus crisis. The conference was structured into three complementary sessions approaching different perspectives of energy poverty. Each day was devoted to another topic, but all were covering energy poverty from different perspectives.
This session was a round table discussion with members of the national Vulnerable Consumers Steering Committee from each ASSIST participant country – Belgium, Poland, Italy, UK, Finland and Spain. The speakers were brought to the table from different sectors so that different perspectives of the project implementation could be shown in the introductory presentations. The representatives presented their country’s experience of how the work of ASSIST has contributed to the implementation of local initiatives and vice versa.
The speakers were discussing what local, regional and national energy poverty initiatives shape the fight against energy poverty. They agree that it is a multidimensional issue affecting different sectors; including public policy, social and health affairs, environment, finance, energy market, home-owner associations.
To be successful in alleviating energy poverty, all the sectors must be included in the dialogue and cooperation.
This session presented the insights from some of European initiatives with their coordinators who were sharing their methodologies and results on what has been already achieved and what are the future goals. Energy efficiency was introduced under Horizon2020 program and LIFE program which is a new funding opportunity for the new budget period.
It is evident that energy efficiency measures are very much relevant and its implementation should be well promoted.
During the final session of the ASSIST conference, new policy framework was presented. It illustrates political pathways, policy recommendations and proposals in different areas to promote vulnerable consumers’ protection in the energy market. This framework paper called "Vulnerable Consumers Protection Framework Paper" was published as a final document deriving from experience gained during the implementation of ASSIST Project in different environments.
The round table discussion was held between different stakeholders working at European level in the institutional, political and social sector. Discussed were opinions and reaction to the introduced policy paper and what issues remain critical to alleviating of energy poverty at European level. The issue of energy poverty is by now politically well recognized among the Member States.
However, policy measures in mere financial support, as it is seen across Europe, do not solve the elementary problem – the drivers of energy poverty:
price, income, energy efficiency for energy poor/vulnerable houses.
Find more information about ASSIST Project here.
Find more information about ASSIST Final Conference here.
Find videos, digests and other materials from ASSIST Final Conference here.
Find more information about the new publication "Vulnerable Consumers Protection Framework Paper" here and the publication in full here.
In countries of the UNECE region, existing normative instruments for buildings' energy performance range from voluntary guidelines to mandatory standards applying to different building types. Its development is a complex decision-making process involving variety of stakeholders, like for publicly, so for privately owned buildings. New UNECE publication Promoting Energy Efficiency Standards And Technologies To Enhance Energy Efficiency in Buildings aims to provide better understanding of the status of deployment and implementation of energy efficiency standards in buildings in the UNECE region based on data gathered through desk research and stakeholder outreach.
Our HFHI Advocacy Officer Zita Kakalejcikova and our partners Marin Petrovic from Enova, Liljana Alceva from HFH Macedonia, Varsenik Khloyan from HFH Armenia and Andrew Popelka from USAID are listed among contributors to this publication in regard to REELIH project.
In this publication, residential multi-apartment buildings are defined as structures used primarily as dwellings for one or more households. Within this understanding, they address challenges of climatic conditions, latitude, legislative acts, construction practices, existing building stock and maintenance practices and occupant behavior, including enforcement, training and monitoring mechanisms. The main challenges connected with residential multi-apartment buildings in "Subregions C" and "E" *, which cover all three REELIH project implementing countries-North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Armenia, are identified as follow:
Many countries, particularly in Subregion C, experience difficulties also in increasing market deployment of energy-efficient technologies stemming from incoherent policies in regard to financial incentives, lack of consumers awareness on benefits of such technologies, insufficiently developed building energy codes and lack of technical expertise.
On the other side, the publication highlights how smart solutions show good results in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Armenia because of government-supported implementation of municipal level energy management systems resulting in higher quality of energy action plans for municipalities, for residential multi-apartment buildings and public buildings.
Publication's chapter "Best Practices on Standards and Technologies for Energy Efficiency In Buildings" identifies best practices in adopting, implementing and enforcing energy efficiency standards and energy-efficient technologies for buildings in the UNECE region. These examples are organized into sections based on their performance in legislative and behavior change, technical measures, and financial mechanisms. REELIH countries are included in the following sections:
Habitat for Humanity International thanks UNECE for recognizing all successful work done in REELIH projects and USAID and our other partners for their continuous support in these projects.
Find the publication in full here.
*UNECE member States are divided into specific subregions based on their geographical location:
Subregion A: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom;
Subregion B: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia;
Subregion C: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan;
Subregion D: Canada, United States of America;
Subregion E: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia;
Subregion F: Turkey.
Israel and San Marino are not listed due to insufficiency of data required for this study.
Organized by UN-Habitat, the conference World Urban Forum 2020 took place in Abu Dhabi from 8 - 13 February, 2020. It was already for the 10th time that this international event brought together the experts from the field and enthusiasts of sustainable urbanization to gather and exchange the views on urban issues. The theme of this tenth session of WUF was
Cities of Opportunities:
Connecting Culture and Innovation
The conference was divided into six dialogues session:
These six dialogues covered the emerging innovative approaches and practices in harnessing culture and innovation as drivers for sustainable urbanization. At the same time, the sessions provided great insight into the linkages between urbanization, culture and innovation as a basis for achieving inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and human settlements. The emphasis was put on a synergy between tradition and modernity, and deeper understanding of multi-generational communities. Through this approach, the conference sessions tried to unfold and introduce the role of culture and innovation in implementation of the New Urban Agenda and achieving urban dimensions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Susana Rojas Williams, HFHI - EMEA Director of Housing and Human Settlements Department, was at WUF10 to speak about the success of REELIH project. UNECE was kind enough to invite HFHI to speak at their training event called
Innovative management of multi-apartment high rise housing: Localizing Sustainable Development Goals 7 & 11 and New Urban Agenda through housing strategies.
It aimed to develop practical knowledge and skills in maintenance and management of multi-apartment residential buildings and to unfold its problematic sides.
At the same time, presented were different approaches that establish a sustainable maintenance and management systems with adequate finance, direct citizen engagement, laws and regulations. The adoption of policies targeting existing housing stock is a strategy that helps realization of SDG 11 and the New Urban Agenda.
The topic of this event acknowledged the specificity of Central and Eastern European region where a significant part of the housing stock consists of old and energy inefficient multi-apartment buildings. The main issue there is that home-owners do not assume the responsibility to maintain the buildings they live in. It is a result of different factors influencing the last decade of 20th century:
This situation left residents of multi-apartment buildings unprepared for a new way of living in these yet ageing, not properly maintained buildings. Simply said, no one was there to tell the homeowners that they have the financial and social obligations to organize and pay for the maintenance and management of their common goods and properties and to ensure their building is fully functioning. Therefore, there is a critical need in this region to build homeowner associations and within them a financial reserve for cyclical maintenance and capital refurbishments for future.
The story of multi-apartment buildings in Central and Eastern Europe is related also to REELIH implementation countries. There, facilitating the "eco-system of residential energy efficiency stakeholders" helped fighting the described challenges. Creating a common environment for people (home-owners), private (banks, construction) and public (local/national government) sector improved the overall efficiency of communication level between these sectors. Moreover, it eased the way in which the homeowners get into a constructive dialogue, get to an agreement for common action and access a financial and other support from private and public sectors. REELIH project's two key messages say that
without homeowners, energy efficient improvements, building maintenance and management cannot happen. Moreover, without the right institutional structure, energy efficiency retrofits, housing management and maintenance cannot scale.
Inter-sector communication is the crucial activity to be present when finding the right solutions to housing issues not only in the Central and Eastern Europe. Check out the solutions to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Armenia and Macedonia and their REELIH success stories on our websites.
Find more information about World Urban Forum here.
Find the WUF10 Declaration here.
Find the REELIH presentation for WUF10 here.
-This is a repost of original article published by USAID
“I’m always finding some excuse to be the last one at work because it’s warmer there. I’m fed up with high bills and chilly rooms.” — Lile Kike, Skopje, North Macedonia
“I could not afford to heat our house last year. I just turned on the stove for 20 minutes in the kitchen to make it possible for everyone in the family to sit around the table for breakfast.” — Nona Nalbandyan,Yerevan, Armenia
“When I first moved in here, the windows were old, and we covered them with blankets to stop the wind.” — Ivana Georgievska, Skopje, North Macedonia
Low income housing in Yerevan, Armenia. / Habitat for Humanity
These stories are all too common in Europe and Eurasia, where housing for low income residents and retirees is dominated by 1960s era apartment blocks. When the Communist bloc collapsed, a wave of privatization swept across the region. Sadly, the governance structures and financial mechanisms required to maintain these buildings did not immediately follow. The massive state institutions charged with repairs during the Soviet period no longer existed.
As a result, newly private homeowners had no one to call when their windows shattered or their bedroom never seemed to warm up.
Many residents of these aging apartment blocks are already struggling with daily expenses. In North Macedonia, for example, 25.7 percent of the population was considered unable to keep their homes adequately warm according to Eurostat data from 2016. This way of life is perilous in a part of the world where winters are long and dark, with temperatures routinely dipping to 20–30 degrees Fahrenheit (-6 to -1 degree Celsius).
Building with shattered windows prior to retrofit, Yerevan, Armenia. / Habitat for Humanity
As heat escapes through the cracks in the walls and ceilings, the cost of heating a building — and keeping the lights on — rises by as much as 20 to 30 percent. The situation becomes particularly dire during the winter months, when the price for heat is too high for many people to bear.
As housing prices and energy bills continued to rise through the 1990s and into the 2000s, residents of these crumbling structures had few places to turn. Fearing the impact of skyrocketing housing costs on already fragile communities, USAID and Habitat for Humanity stepped in.
Starting in 2011 in North Macedonia and expanding into Armenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, USAID works with Habitat for Humanity in Europe and Eurasia to help create the financial mechanisms, public awareness, organizations, and local government buy-in needed to empower residents to organize for better, healthier, more affordable neighborhoods.
USAID’s partnership with Habitat for Humanity is far from traditional development. Directly retrofitting every apartment block would have been prohibitively expensive. It would also have taken decision-making out of the hands of the residents.
USAID and Habitat for Humanity chose a different course. Habitat reached out to homeowners to inform them about how much money they were losing per month in unnecessary energy bills. Those who expressed interest in retrofitting their homes found a partner in Habitat.
Homeowner’s Association meeting in Banovici, Tuzla Canton, Bosnia and Herzegovina. / Habitat for Humanity
The key to success turned out to be a combination of community organizing and burden sharing. Residents had to pool their own resources, request a loan from a bank, and consistently pay down that loan as a community. Habitat helped neighbors organize and agree on a refurbishment plan. Now they only needed a financing partner.
In North Macedonia, Habitat set up its own loan fund to demonstrate that homeowner’s associations are reliable clients. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, residents started out financing the repairs through personal savings and local government subsidies facilitated by Habitat. In Armenia, Habitat worked directly with banks to craft loans tailored for homeowner’s associations.
To understand the success of the partnership between Habitat for Humanity and USAID, one only needs to visit these neighborhoods.
Above: Views before and after a building with shattered windows in Yerevan, Armenia, received a retrofit. Below: A building with shattered windows prior to and after a retrofit, in Tuzla Canton, Bosnia and Herzegovina. / Habitat for Humanity
And in Bosnia and Herzegovina, four buildings (49 housing units, 133 residents) have been retrofitted. Now local governments in the Tuzla Canton have developed an action plan to retrofit 973 more homes. The plan will provide subsidies to match loans and other funds raised by homeowners associations.
A happy resident of a Habitat for Humanity-repaired home. / Habitat for Humanity
Beyond the numbers, Habitat for Humanity has forged a market ecosystem where homeowners, banks, and government officials work together to create healthier, more affordable housing for some of the most vulnerable populations in the region. In the process, they have also created a model which can be replicated across Europe and Eurasia because it benefits everyone in that system.
Banks now have a tested way to work with potential new customers via their homeowners associations. By pitching in now, local governments reduce the likelihood of having to invest a greater sum down the road to retrofit buildings, build new housing, or increase subsidies for electricity bills. Homeowners are empowered to take control of their own future and feel a renewed sense of pride in their homes and communities.
Most importantly, residents are welcoming the extra they find in their pocketbooks. According to Habitat, retrofitting has cut energy bills for low income homeowners by up to 50 percent.
But don’t take my word for it. The homeowners should speak for themselves.
“The difference is obvious after the windows installation in the lobby. Most of the day the boiler is switched off. This year it is very warm in the winter.” — Alaverdi Toumasyan, Yerevan, Armenia
“It feels like I’m in a dream with the roof done. It’s about time and the feeling is incredible.” — Milenko Lukich, Tuzla Canton, Bosnia and Herzegovina
“I never believed that our building was going to end up looking like this…it is a thousand times better, a thousand times….” — Meho Mehinovich, Tuzla Canton, Bosnia and Herzegovina
USAID’s partnership with Habitat for Humanity has important policy implications. Educating the public about how energy efficiency personally impacts them is a small but important step towards insulating the region from internal and external energy shocks, especially those perpetrated by foreign malign actors seeking to leverage energy access in exchange for political deference. And for those countries looking to join the European Union, which has exacting standards for energy efficiency, this new approach establishes important protocols now that may help down the road.
Gretchen Birkle is the Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Europe and Eurasia and was the Acting Country Representative in North Macedonia.
We have gotten an early Christmas gift and a good reason to celebrate this end of the year! REELIH project of Habitat for Humanity and USAID is included in a new publication
50-out-of-the-box Housing Solutions to Homelessness and Housing Exclusion
by Housing Solutions Platform, which is the partnership of FEANTSA, Fondation Abbé Pierre and Housing Europe.
This compendium of different innovative and inspiring cases of housing solutions for the people locked out from decent, affordable and secure housing in Europe was launched on December 11th in the premises of the European Parliament. The publication provides a rich selection of projects attempting to overcome financial and political barriers within European housing system using many different means such as innovative construction, making use of the private rental sector, social housing, integrated approaches and more. Even thought included projects are local and many of them small-scale but should bring more light into the problem and encourage for more creativity in the housing policy. We are pleased and proud to claim that REELIH project got such a label!
Nine housing specialists had a hard task to select 50 from more than 100 proposed projects for the publication. This is yet another success for HFHI to say that Gyorgy Sumeghy, HFHI's Associate Director, Policy and Advocacy, acted as a member of this Steering Group and had a chance to go through all the inspiring projects himself which surely was not an easy task. Each member of the Steering Group also had a chance to nominate a project for evaluation. REELIH was Gyorgy's nomination and managed to get into the publication following.
At the same time, Gyorgy, as all the other Steering Group members, got an opportunity to introduce one of the chapters in this publication. Gyorgy wrote introductory words to Chapter 1 "Grassroot, Community and Collaborative Housing" and highlighted the problem and opportunity at the same time of communities of home-owners who must be mobilized and engaged to operate together. As he says:
"community-led housing is characteristic of local action, often small-scale, that it's about affordability, is not for profit and involves a lot of voluntary effort".
The launch event was opened by Freek Spinnewijn, the director of FEANTSA, and was followed by opening words from the host MEP Katrin Langensiepen, and a presentation of the report given by Clotilde Clark-Foulquier, the head of overall coordination. The second panel was dedicated to presentations of selected projects from the publication divided by themes into two sections. The first topic concerned the important role that cities play in addressing homelessness, the second covered matching housing needs and social needs. REELIH fell under this second section and Gyorgy had a pleasure to present the project of HFHI and USAID there, in the European Parliament in front of many specialists from the field and other relevant stakeholders. At the third and final panel, experts tried to answer the question of how unmet housing needs can be addressed, from the local all the way to the European level.
Check out the video record from the launch event and watch Gyuri's presentation of REELIH starting at 00:50:00. The presentation slides with all others are also available here.
The 50 Out-Of-The-Box Housing Solutions to Homelessness & Housing Exclusion is divided into nine chapters, each covering different side of the housing problems. Our "solution" has number 13 and falls under Chapter 2 dedicated to "Innovation in Construction and Renovation".
This is probably the right place to mention and congratulate our local office Habitat for Humanity Poland which also made it into the publication with their Social Rental Agency project in Warsaw. Their project attempts to solve the problem of underdeveloped rental housing sector in Poland. By combining rental housing support, employment services and social work within a single institutional framework, they address the issue of housing shortage, poverty and unequal work opportunities in Warsaw.
It is great to see that the hard work of Habitat for Humanity is acknowledged and appreciated by other experts from the field around the Europe and further. We hope this unique publication will serve its purpose and inspire other local projects to happen and help the people who need it in an effective way which, we suppose, is at the center of all these projects.
We would like to thank FEANTSA, Fondation Abbé Pierre and Housing Europe again for giving us the opportunity to be featured in the publication.
Find more information about Housing Solutions Platform here.
Check out the new report here.
Centre for Social Sciences Institute of Sociology (TKSZI) in Budapest, Hungary will host a two day International Conference and Workshop on November 25th and 26th, 2019 named
This event is co-organized by Habitat for Humanity Hungary together with Elosztó and Engager.
Energy poverty in Hungary has been growing and with the issue gaining a significant recognition also in European context, it has become one of the focus areas of the European Commission. There is, however, still a lack of proper definition of energy poverty. At the same time, states should be able to measure the scale of the problem among the population in order to propose possible solutions in a format of specific policies or large-scale programs that are currently absent not only in Hungary. This event attempts to contribute to the mentioned challenges and to provide a written statement giving relevant stakeholders and actors a deeper insight into the complex issue of energy poverty within the Hungarian context.
First day of the conference will be dedicated to presentations and discussion on current research, good practices and experiences around defining and measuring energy poverty in Europe with a special focus on Central Eastern Europe.
On this occasion, Habitat for Humanity International will present learnings from REELIH project related to energy poverty.
Second day will be in a format of interactive workshop serving as an opportunity for all to contribute to a draft definition of energy poverty and set of indicators for energy poverty within the Hungarian context. This is a preparation for publishing a written statement summarizing key findings and proposal for a definition and context-based indicators of energy poverty in Hungary. The participants will work in groups led by local facilitators and energy poverty researchers from the ENGAGER network.