Financing energy efficiency in France

Generating housing solutions for refugees and asylum seekers

Hoenheim, 31 March 2016 | Published in Energy, Economy

For the first time, the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) is co-financing a project of energy efficient refurbishment of housing stock. The housing association Group SNI, its member Adoma and the CEB visited on 21 March the first retrofit operation in in Hoenheim (Bas-Rhin). The three partners signed the contract of cooperation during the last national social housing congress.

The housing residence, whose refurbishment cost amounts up to 1.8 million € (460 455 € CEB loan), gives home to 235 migrant workers.

The project is one of the 60 projects to be co-financed in the next five years by the bank as part of the agreement, which seeks, with a budget of € 100 million, to provide better reception conditions and emergency shelter to refugees and asylum seekers.

This is the first operation within the framework of the cooperation agreement which was signed in November 2015. The CEB is giving a loan which is repayable over five years, from an overall fund of 100 million euros for investments to deliver new capabilities and better housing conditions, home and emergency shelter for the refugees and asylum seekers.

In this context, the CEB funds will be used in particular to finance refurbishment measures, in particular energy, and rehabilitation operations to create new accommodation for asylum seekers, while improving existing ones. CEB thus finances part of the investment plan of Adoma to modernize its stock and rebuild or renovate 35 000 dwellings in total.

Over the next five years, 60 projects will be supported by the bank. Within the next twelve months, it will finance in particular the renovation of five social residences in Avignon-Tintoretto (Vaucluse), Berre-l'Étang (Bouches-du-Rhône), Seyssinet-Pariset (Isère, also center reception of asylum seekers), Paris (Annam and Matisse streets in the thirteenth arrondissement), three Cada to Fontaines-Saint-Martin (Rhône) Gaillon (Eure) and Oullins (Rhône) and three homes in Cada in Dijon (Gold Coast), Givors (Rhône) and Le Péage-de-Roussillon (Isère).

These developments unfold after the CEB has included as a priority in its statutes "to help solve social problems posed by refugees, displaced persons or migrants."