#Housing2030 - Time to Think (and do!) Differently
This was already an important piece of work – it just became a lot more important…
Brussels, 20 April 2020 | Published in Urban, Economy, Social
“Anything we can do that demonstrates that the provision of good quality affordable homes is economically, socially & financially manageable, rational as well as being politically smart has the potential to have an impact not just in our regions but across the world.” Housing Europe, UN Habitat and UNECE Housing and Land Management Committee caught up with David Orr, one of the two of #Housing2030 ambassadors to hear his view on what the current pandemic will mean for housing systems in the region and for the importance of their joint work.
David gave his view on how the Coronavirus has demonstrated beyond argument that:
"our homes are completely critical to our health and well-being. It will add to the huge amount of evidence out there already about the adverse impact of poor quality homes on people’s physical health , and indeed the adverse impact on their life chances generally. It will in addition lead to an even greater focus on the impact on peoples mental health."
David also shared his view on how this current crisis will change the functionality of our homes predicting that:
"we are going to be exploring over the next couple of years a world where people spend more time at home and (even if we have a universal vaccine) we have all discovered that it is much easier to do a whole lot of things from home than we thought and if that is the case instead of a home being occupied half the time by half of the household we might find that our homes are very heavily occupied for much greater periods of time".
The implications of this of course are that "the need for light space, digital and social connectivity will become even more critical". The term adequacy will take on a new meaning...
#Housing2030 will be a tool for policy makers to demystify housing policy by unravelling how the right policies around the 3 key pillars- Land, Governance, Finance- have successfully been managed to deliver affordable quality homes.
The first official #Housing2030 event to take place in May (watch this space for the details) and will reveal how policy makers have used clever land policies to make affordable housing a reality and give the floor to experts promoting a new approach to land and housing.