The think tank Terra Nova publishes a study and proposes solutions to try to resolve the affordable housing crisis. He pleads for the strengthening of the French model of social housing with adjustments.
Expand private rental supply, better target public aid or “decentralize” to “improve the effectiveness of housing policies”: a Terra Nova study published this Thursday, January 22 presents a series of measures to fight the housing crisis.
In this report entitled “For an overhaul of housing policy”, the think tank defends the establishment of a tax status for private landlords, recognizing rental as an economic activity in its own right.
“For new arrivals in a city (…) there must be a significant rental stock”, explained Frédérique Lahaye, co-author of the report, at a press conference, “but we must try to do something very social”, she underlines.
This status of the private lessor which intends to revive rental investment, is among the amendments retained on Tuesday in the revenue part of the budget, for which the government has taken responsibility through 49.3.
Strengthen the social park and change the rules
Terra Nova also suggests developing rental cooperatives financed by the cooperators themselves in order to “develop an affordable offer”, indicates Bernard Coloos, another co-author of the study.
If the French model of social housing is “recognized as an asset in the face of the housing crisis” according to Terra Nova, it also suffers from “rigidities”.
The think tank cites in particular “the unequal geographical distribution, the low mobility of tenants, the mismatch between the size of housing and the composition of households, and the complexity of allocation methods”.
To strengthen the HLM world, “it is proposed (…) to increase the supply, in particular of small housing, to rethink the rent policy, to better distribute construction geographically and to diversify the populations welcomed while preserving social diversity”, defends Terra Nova.
The institution also judges that the transformation of vacant offices into housing is overestimated and cannot, on its own, meet needs.
More power for intercoms
On an institutional level, Terra Nova calls for strengthening the role of intermunicipalities in steering housing policies, in order to better adapt responses to local realities, while maintaining the strategic role of the State.
The authors of the report also recommend eliminating the solidarity rent reduction (RLS) which they consider penalizing the investment capacity of landlords.
This device is “a gas machine having the effect of penalizing the HLM organizations which house the most poor people”, denounces Frédérique Lahaye, “because the lower you make rents for vulnerable populations, the more you pay RLS”.