Public Social Housing Research Articles

Planning and managing public housing stock in the silver economy

Many European countries have a large stock of public social housing for low- and middle-income families. The European Partnership for Active and Healthy Ageing report shows that much of this housing stock is unsuitable for the growing number of older residents with declining functional abilities, especially those needing long-term care (LTC) services. The article describes why and to what extent the problem is occurring. Also, we answer the question of what the dynamics of production of such specialized housing units for older adults in need of an LTC should be. We considered the production (masonry) of assisted living units and housing with care for independent and sheltered housing to mitigate the risk of events leading to illness and disability and thus increase the life expectancy of residents if the right housing stock is in place. The model is recommended to determine the dynamics of investment and production of such housing units. Mathematical programming is developed based on geo-gerontological projections of demand. The calculation in R provides us with the optimal dynamics of production and supply in one of the Slovenian regions. The developed model may be of particular interest to other regions and municipalities facing a housing shortage for older adults and increasing demand. The same procedure could also be used to plan the dynamics of constructing facilities in a public-private partnership or some other form of social infrastructure ownership.

Using Co-design Methods With Chinese Late-Life Immigrants to Translate Mixed-Method Findings to Social Resources

Mainland Chinese born in the 1940s–1950s have experienced unique socio-cultural circumstances that have shaped their late-life immigration experiences. Little is known about what this population perceives would reduce their loneliness. This study aimed to investigate the role of co-design in the development of community-based resources/services for ameliorating the loneliness of Chinese late-life immigrants. Eight co-researchers completed three co-design workshops, and two key service providers were consulted. Co-researchers co-designed guidebooks on accessing primary healthcare facilities, social services, aged care facilities, and public transport, which were considered helpful for ameliorating loneliness. Co-housing was co-designed as a concept and regarded as a feasible way of living to strengthen social interactions and reduce loneliness. Providing more public social housing, adding ‘next-bus stop’ announcements, and conducting loneliness screening were recommended at the national level. Our findings affirmed the need to truly listen to the voices of both service end-users and service providers.

A Policy Roadmap for the Energy Renovation of the Residential and Educational Building Stock in Italy

The building sector is crucial in all of the possible net zero scenarios suggested for the European Union. In this area, the Italian situation is exemplary. Italy suffers from an aging and low-performance building stock and needs to increase its annual rate of energy retrofits in order to achieve its 2030 and 2050 targets. Even though since at least 2007, several different incentives schemes intended to stimulate energy-efficiency interventions have been in place, Italy has not been sufficiently able to promote deep retrofits. In 2020, in order to help the economy recover after the lockdowns that were introduced to face the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the existing incentives were increased to up to 110% of investments for interventions that improved the energy class by at least two grades. This so-called “Superbonus” was also extended to the public social housing sector thanks to a credit assignment scheme. Given the results of this provisional phase, a possible policy roadmap for the energy renovation of the residential and educational building stock in Italy is presented in this paper through an analysis of data related to the implementation of current instruments in terms of number of interventions, investment needed, energy savings and evaluation of potential benefits and costs that can derive from an increase in the current deep-renovation rate. Through definition of a long-term renovation strategy, this paper illustrates how market barriers and other issues in instrument design can be tackled and how policymakers can help to develop a sustainable long-term roadmap for energy-efficient buildings. Beyond the residential sector, public buildings, particularly educational buildings, are taken into consideration as well, as they are places of collective use that represent the social values of fairness and sustainability and can therefore have an exemplary role for private initiatives.

Energy retrofit optimization for social building in temperate climate zone

This study analyses the energy consumption of a social housing built in the 80′s. This typology is widely diffused in the building stock of Rome and of the city’s suburbs and for this its improvement represents a dutiful effort for the Italian national scene, where the energy efficiency of public social housing is a major concern. Public funding is significantly reduced compared to the past and the conditions of the buildings are deteriorating over time, resulting in an increase in energy consumption for air conditioning and in indoor comfort conditions very far from the standards. Often it is also very difficult to act on the passive system, with the insertion of a thermal insulation, as well as inside the apartments, with the replacement of terminal units. For this reason a good way is to evaluate the possibility of modifying the thermal energy generation system, preserving as much as possible the distribution and supply system inside the apartments. In general, where the boiler is not obsolescent, the idea is to propose a hybrid generation system with the inclusion of a heat pump (HHP), which could be implemented with renewable energy equipment, properly installed in the building. The results show that a hybrid system can lower the primary energy consumption up to 28%, thus allowing the employment of renewable energies within the social housing building stock.

Comparison of different heating generator systems to reduce energy consumption in social housing in a Mediterranean climate.

This study analyses the energy consumption of a social housing built in the 80’s. This building typology is deteriorating over time with increased energy consumption for air conditioning and indoor comfort that is well below the standard. This typology is also widely diffused in the city’s building stock, especially in its suburbs. Thus, the energy efficiency of public social housing represents a major concern for the Italian national scene, and its improvement represents an effort of critical importance. However, public funding is significantly reduced compared to the past and. In addition, it is often difficult to act on passive systems, such as installing thermal insulation, or replacing terminal units inside apartments. In these cases, as an energy retrofit, it may be appropriate to evaluate the possibility of preserving as much of the existing distribution and supply system as possible, while modifying the thermal energy generation system. In general, where the boiler is not obsolescent, the idea is to propose a hybrid generation system with the inclusion of a heat pump (HHP), which could be implemented with renewable energy equipment, properly installed in the building. The main goal of the present work was to evaluate through dynamic analysis different HVAC scenarios, to assess the optimal configuration of the system for residential use. The results show that a hybrid system can lower the primary energy consumption up to 28%, thus allowing the employment of renewable energies within the social housing building stock.

Neighborhoods and mental health—evidence from a natural experiment in the public social housing sector

Neighborhoods and mental health—evidence from a natural experiment in the public social housing sector

Gjensidig støtte som forberedelse for samskaping med sårbare familier

People in need of support often experience to be well helped when they themselves holds a helping role. Equality and reciprocity are central values in the literature on co-creation and a recognition of such values was implicitly embedded in an initiative we took to- wards an action learning project in Larvik (Norway). An action learning project was aiming towards creating a dialogue between public service receivers and their counterpart public servants in the context of a public social housing support program. In the first phase we emphasized on creating contact and dialogue across the counter. Along the way however, we had to flip our focus in the project. We realized that vulnerable people need to prepare before meeting social service servants on equal basis. The article shows how recipients of social housing service benefit strongly from a pro- cess where they got the opportunity to support each other before participating in a broader co-creating partnership.

Thermal Comfort Assessment during Winter Season: A Case Study on Portuguese Public Social Housing

Many public social housing building stocks were constructed before the introduction of national thermal regulations, and, as a result, in some situations, energy poverty conditioning during severe winter seasons results in little to no heating habits involving active systems in order to improve building thermal performances. Besides rigorous summer seasons, climate change predictions also indicate rigorous winter seasons will occur that will prevail in some Iberia Peninsula locations, worsening this scenario for this Southern European region. Among others, understanding the extension of discomfort in social housing buildings during heating seasons is therefore essential so as to perceive the suitability of the building stock to deal with present and future climate scenarios. Thus, this article presents a thermal comfort assessment during a winter season period applied to two social housing dwellings located in Covilhã, Portugal, inhabited by elderly residents, under realistic heating habits. An experimental campaign was performed and the results show that discomfort was found to be extremely significant for the majority of the occupied time. Passive means alone and resident heating habits were not enough to achieve proper indoor thermal and humidity conditions, resulting in important losses of well-being to the risk group of the elderly.

Precast Concrete Building Construction and Envelope Thermal Behavior: A Case Study on Portuguese Public Social Housing

A considerable part of Southern European countries building stock was constructed before the implementation of national thermal regulations, and as such, it is currently exposed to challenges such as energy poverty and climate change. Portuguese public social housing presents a significant variety of construction systems and applied typologies. Among them, the “Novobra NK1”, a precast concrete construction system that exploits some innovative features in envelope components, has been used in several projects. Considering the importance of retrofitting to improve and adapt the thermal behaviors of buildings to face the aforementioned challenges, this article aims to provide an understanding of the behavior of a NK1 thermal envelope of a dwelling located in Covilhã, Portugal, and the impact of some constructive envelope retrofit measures applied. Results show that existing opaque envelope elements and glazed areas present characteristics that are no longer able to provide proper responses to contemporary building constructive requirements. External insulation was identified as a key retrofit measure, window replacement also being an advised solution for rigorous heating seasons. Improvements from the internal side of windows, such as roller shades, may provide few benefits during cooling seasons, and applying solar films is not advised without a proper thermal repercussion analysis.

Enhancing the Historic Public Social Housing through a User-Centered Design-Driven Approach

The study presents a didactic experience for the deep refurbishment and the revitalization of the San Siro neighborhood in Milan (Italy). The public housing is a significative example of the 20th-century architecture (also named “Italian Modernism of Architecture”), designed by the Italian architects—Franco Albini, Renato Camus, Giancarlo Palanti, and Laslo Kovacs (1938–1941). Nowadays, it is a multicultural area, characterized by the presence of a fragile population, with strong socio-spatial inequalities, intercultural and intergenerational conflicts. Here, an architectural design project is realized, experimenting with innovative and up-to-date design solutions. This experience develops a sensitive awareness of the multidimensional complexity of the environmentally responsible design, which requires a critical balance among different disciplines and skills. The reusing of existing buildings has sustainable importance for preventing new land-uses and for saving the potential energy consumption related to the construction process. Only a widespread knowledge of the local socio-economic conditions through participatory actions permits the selection of appropriate retrofit solutions, considering also the high cultural, social, and economic values. Functional and social mix, space flexibility, green design, renewable energies, circular economy criteria, and continuative maintenance are the correct strategies for boosting the social revitalization and for improving fairness, safety, architectural quality, human comfort, energy efficiency, and sustainability in this public housing neighborhood.

Management accounting systems in institutional complexity: Hysteresis and boundaries of practices in social housing

This paper examines how organizational actors use Management Accounting Systems (MAS) in a public social housing organization in a context marked by institutional pressures for both social and financial accountability. More specifically, we use practice theory to examine the articulation of practical intelligibility, i.e. how actors make sense of competing institutional pressures in their day-to-day practices while being informed by less financially loaded MAS. Our findings underline that, despite increased institutional pressures on social aspects, actors’ compromises reveal the predominance of financial concerns. We show that this might be due to, not only the current institutional pressures or the MAS, but also to the hysteresis of a structuring element of practice: the financially oriented teleo-affective structures imposed by previous NPM reforms. This study also describes the role of ABC/M and practice boundaries in the articulation of practical intelligibility for conflicting institutional pressures and in the way actors compromise.

Social Mix Policies in the French Eco-Districts: Discourses, Policies and Social Impacts

In the 1960s, France built large high-rise developments to house poor and immigrant populations. This policy led to the rise of crime and violent unrest in those developments. Responding to that failure, France has tried, especially since the eighties, to promote a social mix policy in its new housing developments. In the first decade of the twenty first century, France elaborated an eco-district (eco-quartier) program whose guidelines emphasize the goals of this social mix policy together with affordability in public social housing. In light of these developments, this paper focuses on the socio-economic aspects of French eco-districts, especially with respect to low-income populations. The eco-quartier housing distribution has shown that social mix goals are barely reached. In affluent cities, where property prices are high (such as Paris, its middle-class suburbs and some large cities), the municipalities build eco-quartiers in substandard neighborhoods, to attract middle class families. In average cities, some municipalities have implemented more social housing than planned, to provide developers with access to State subsidies and loans – but can still privilege the middle-class in the allocation of the resulting housing. In the poorest French towns, eco-quartiers can improve living conditions for local residents but do not effectively promote social mixing.

Building characterisation and assessment methodology of social housing stock in the warmer Mediterranean climate: the case of southern Spain.

The increase in the average temperature of the planet due to global warming has serious repercussions on buildings, affecting indoor environmental quality and thermal comfort. Currently, one of the building stocks most at risk is that of the residential sector in southern Spain, given the high sensitivity of the Mediterranean climate to the effects of climate change and the massive volume of this built environment with obsolete energy conditions. However, it is crucial to carry out an in-depth assessment of the necessary retrofitting strategies for implementation in this existing stock, with an overall analysis of building characterisation and current state of the building stock. This research takes these aspects into consideration, using statistical descriptive techniques to evaluate the building characterisation of public social housing in southern Spain. This public sector is managed by the Regional Government of Andalusia and is made up of 39.486 social housing units. Results reported in this research make it possible to establish which buildings require short-term and priority retrofitting actions, thus creating a useful tool for decision-making within the political context.

Profitability calculations under trial of strength

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the organizational construction of profit at the responsibility-centre level, how underlying cost calculations are challenged, and the role of accountants therein. Design/methodology/approach This paper analyses profit calculation in a public social housing organization that experienced New Public Management (NPM). Participant observations, archives and interviews inform the study over three years, enabling access to day-to-day practices. Findings This study examines a trial of strength that revisited long-existing profitability and cost calculations. Accountants held competing views of how to treat labour costs. Some were anti-programme during a trial of incompatibility, while others were programme defenders. The authors also provide evidence of the stability of an established network and its resistance to the claims of an adversary spokesperson in a trial of strength. The concept of trial of incompatibility proved helpful in showing how the actor networks within OMEGA played out the tension between profit orientation and the social mission of offering affordable dwellings. Research limitations/implications The paper provides rare qualitative data on the significant and complex role of calculative costing choices in determining intra-organizational profitability and its interference with the inherent social mission of the organization. Practical implications The authors suggest that profitability calculations are influenced not only by economic context but also by different views of organizational actors regarding how to calculate profit. These calculations would benefit from a more detailed and explicit documentation of reasons for choices made, given the potential for different and, in principle, equally valid approaches. The authors provide further evidence of the complexity of the public social housing sector. Social implications This research points to a departure from the mission of public social housing in the face of NPM reforms and further questions the compatibility of a profit orientation with the provision of affordable dwellings. Originality/value The findings show intra-accounting variation regarding a specific element of profit calculation (labour costs) relating to the organization’s wider mission and status.

Reinterpreting Existenzminimum in Contemporary Affordable Housing Solutions

During the housing crisis of the 1920s, the German concept Existenzminimum (minimum dwelling) was developed and applied to the construction of public social housing. It was considered a design laboratory, where research, design, and experimentation would focus on a unique goal: create a space-efficient affordable housing typology, based on minimum quality standards. Empirical evidence indicates a renewed interest in alternative design solutions and minimum dwelling approaches over the last decade: examples include micro-housing solutions and collaborative housing models. This is due to the current affordable crisis and the increasing trend of urbanisation. However, little is known about the current interpretation of Existenzminimum. What does the concept entail today and how has it developed? This article investigates if and how Existenzminimum is currently applied: first, it unfolds the core design principles of the original Existenzminimum. Then, these principles are used to assess if and how existing affordable or low-cost housing approaches are current (re)interpretations of the concept. Finally, the article proposes a definition for a contemporary Existenzminimum, arguing that a better understanding and awareness of the concept can help urban planners, designers, policy-makers and citizens in developing alternative affordable housing solutions.

Carrying Out Municipal Tasks in the Scope of Housing Stock Management – Case Study of Poznań City

Abstract The municipal real estate stock, including housing, serves as an asset base in the process of carrying out statutory tasks by the municipality. Due to the numerous functions of municipal housing in socioeconomic development and its influence on people’s living conditions, it is essential that local governments manage the stock with particular rationality and effectiveness. Management activities differ according to the aim, type and functions of the stock. This paper discusses conditions and potential benefits for the municipality from replacing budgetary units with commercial companies that take over the statutory tasks of municipalities in the field of public social housing and providing the right conditions to enable people’s housing needs to be met. Furthermore, the author presents possible financial settlement forms resulting from leasing municipal housing to commercial companies.

Between past and future: Social Housing in Serbia in the transitional process

This article discusses the evolution of social public housing in the Yugoslav Federation with reference to Serbia, in relation to a number of socioeconomic- cultural and political variables. The focus on different aspects of the housing problem demonstrates the current challenges and limitations of each of them. The changes that occurred quickly denied the experience of the socialist period, while a reading of the experiences of the past might have been useful to draw interesting suggestions to guide current policies in the sector, which follow the implementation of EU directives in a manner that is uncritical and decontextualised.

La démolition des immeubles de logements sociaux. L'urbanisme entre scènes et coulisses

The demolition of social housing is today presented as a legal and legitimate line of action with regard to the management of a public social housing pool inherited from the planning and development Policy of the Trente Glorieuses (the "Glorious Thirty" years of France's post-WW2 boom) and with regard to the urban management of estates resulting from France's Politique de la Ville ("Urban Policy"). This work, the result of a thesis defended in 2004, retraces the history surrounding the long period of resistance (1975-2001) on the part of the French State to transfer the arbitration of decisions relating to the public property with a social vocation to local public bodies.

An Investigation into the Adoption of Target Costing on Brazilian Public Social Housing Projects

The suitability of target costing for use in construction remains controversial and specific studies to assist its implementation are lacking. This research aims to critically inspect the contextual characteristics that may influence its implementation during the product development process (PDP) for social housing projects in Brazil. An exploratory and instrumental case study within a state social housing provider company provided PDP-related data. Data collection involved conducting unstructured interviews of higher management and diverse technical staff, and the analysis of company documents and records. A framework describing how target costing is applied in PDP is presented and general propositions are drawn from a theoretical basis built on the relationship between the characteristics of the analysed context and target costing theory. Opportunities and obstacles to target costing applicability were derived from them, as well as clarifications about relevant issues concerning the implementation process of this approach. Although the possibilities of applying target costing to social housing projects are limited by its intrinsic characteristics and traditional institutional barriers to new procurement methods, this article contributes to the discussion for more efficient and proactive ways of conceiving social housing projects, in an effort to deliver more value to stakeholders and end-users.

La Lr. 12/2005 e la riforma urbanistica nazionale

- Federico Oliva (p. 13) Urban planning reform is underway through new regional reform laws and small but important partial legislative measures (public social housing and equal distribution). What is lacking, however, is a national law on the «fundamental principles of regional and urban planning», which would not only legally consolidate new regional laws and guard against the legal dangers of a transition period which is too long, but would also represent the necessary reference framework for the policies, plans and programmes of all the institutions with responsibility for planning in a given geographical area. The Lombard Law No. 12/2005 forms no real part of this reform process because of two critical weaknesses: the absence of a structural plan replaced by a strategic plan, the ‘DP' (plan document), which is too short time wise to fulfil the function; the absence of an operational plan, replaced by the ‘action plans', which, however, do not guarantee the implementation of fundamental functions. Moreover the law does not address the main current malaise, which is the ‘metropolitanisation' of the country.