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作者

Winters, Sien

来源

JOURNAL OF HOUSING AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT,Vol.volumes-and-issues,Issue38-4,P.

语言

英文

关键字

作者单位

摘要

Flanders has a relatively small but well targeted social housing stock. Social housing policy has been fairly stable since the devolvement of housing policy from the Belgian state to the regions in the 1980s. As such, Flanders did not follow the trends that were observed internationally in social housing finance and provision, e.g. towards privatization and replacing object subsidies by subject subsidies. However, things may change. Today, Flemish social housing is facing one of the most important reforms in its history. In 2023, the Social Housing Associations (SHAs) and Social Rental Agencies (SRAs) have to merge into ‘Housing Companies’. The reform includes a radical redistribution of the working areas of the social housing providers, and will be accompanied by a reform of the allocation rules. In addition, a new finance mechanism is implemented aiming to subsidise private developers for building social and affordable housing. In this policy review, we describe these policy changes within the historical and international context, and discuss the reactions from stakeholders and researchers. We conclude that the policy changes will probably not alter the conclusion about the somewhat exceptional evolution of Flemish social housing within the international context, but need to be followed with care, as the access of social housing for vulnerable groups may become more difficult, could lead to a further slowdown of social housing investments and to a less cost-effective allocation of subsidies.