Housing Europe welcomes two new members and a new partner
Our network expands further in Greece, Portugal and Latvia
Brussels, 20 September 2021 | Published in Future of the EU & Housing
Our membership network is growing and we are proud to officially announce that we have on board Major Development Agency Thessaloniki, known as MDAT, and the municipally owned company with public liability, MatosinhosHabit in Portugal. We are also glad to be in partnership with Ekubirojs, a social design NGO in Latvia that is committed to work with citizens to take back their cities.
Major Development Agency Thessaloniki (MDAT) is a social rental agency in charge of designing social and affordable housing strategy on behalf of the Greek municipality.
The strategy of MDAT is to work towards creating of social and affordable housing stock using municipal, public and private stock, to focus on complimentary interventions to increase resilience of housing solutions, as well as deploy preventive measures that tackle energy poverty, protect households from being evicted and reinforces tenants' rights.
Back in 1998, the Portuguese Municipality of Matosinhos in the district of Porto with 175,000 inhabitants unanimously approved the proposal for the creation of the municipal housing company, MatosinhosHabit. The company is responsible for the management and allocation of social housing in Matosinhos and aware that the allocation of housing does not end the municipality's field of action and responsibility.
Today, MatosinhosHabit is not limited to managing the housing heritage of the Municipality of Matosinhos and guaranteeing the mandatory equity in access to social housing by those who need it most. The company also develops projects in the areas of urban rehabilitation, as well as in the development of new social responses in the area of housing and in local social intervention.
Our new member rents out 4,320 social housing units in 51 residential neighbourhoods, housing about 11,000 people.
Ekubirojs was established in 2012 to promote Energy Efficiency and green investment in the Baltics and eastern Europe, leveraging the tremendous energy saving opportunities in Soviet Era buildings. Ever since, it has been working with the public and private sector as well as citizens, giving them experience in understanding different perspectives that communities may have.
The social design NGO aligns stakeholders from all sectors acquiring experience to spot opportunities and design new products and services to meet the complex challenges of 21st century cities.