Author
Name: Marietta Haffner Organisation: Delft University of Technology, Netherlands Position: |
Non-profit Housing Providers in a ‘Dominating’ Housing Regime: Re-strengthening the Role of Dutch Housing Associations
Throughout the European Union governments have reduced their investment in social housing, a trend that has also affected the Netherlands. Providers of social rental housing have faced policy changes that have challenged the dominant role in the unique Dutch unitary rental market regime. This paper examines the extent to which a revival of this dominant role can be attributed to the government’s recent interventions. It contextualises the subsequent challenges facing the housing market currently and in the future based on a review of relevant literature, policy documents, and input from interviewed experts. The largely qualitative interpretation shows that recent government interventions have given providers of social rental housing back some of the previous autonomy they had lost in terms of financing and regulation. We argue that providers of social rental housing are regaining a more important role in providing housing for low- and medium-income groups.
EU-SILC: Should We Make Do with What We Have?
In this Briefing Paper the focus is on the EU-SILC based on the question: What are the strengths and weakness of the pan-European data set EU-SILC which stands for ‘European Union Statistics of Income and Living Conditions’? How useful is this database when making international housing comparisons? The examples in this paper are based on my experience with the EU-SILC and illustrate a number of themes as setting norms for all countries and differences between housing and poverty research. My conclusion is that some of these measures transcend the database evaluation and are concerned with the definition of concepts. As long as there are no ‘better’ data alternatives, we should make do with what we have, but carefully and transparently.
