Financial crisis and housing challenges
A Housing Europe visit to Athens
Athens, 20 April 2017 | Published in Social
Housing Europe Secretary General, Sorcha Edwards visited on March 27th and 28th the Greek capital to take part in the ‘International Days for Higher Education, Cosmopolitanism and Solidarity’ organized by the Technical Educational Institute (TEI) of Athens. The academic partner of Housing Europe welcomed Sorcha for the first time in Greece, scheduling also a number of meetings in the Greek Parliament with representatives from most political parties.
Sorcha contributed to the first thematic panel of the international conference that explored the relation between the economic crisis, poverty and education, presenting the role of public, cooperative and social housing providers across Europe in the active social inclusion of vulnerable population groups.
Just after the conference Sorcha also had the chance to meet with the president and a number of academics and researchers from the TEI of Athens to discuss the need for the active involvement of the academic community in the development of holistic social housing policies in Greece.
The last part of the visit included a number of meetings with party representatives from across the political spectrum in the Greek Parliament. This has been a chance for Housing Europe to discuss for the first time the state of play of the housing market in the country since the abolition of its Greek member organization, OEK.
Sorcha’s presentation about the social housing discourse stimulated a debate among academics and students in the University, while discussions with members of political parties raised important issues, which will probably lead to a hearing about social housing for the very first time in the Parliamentary Committee of Social Affairs in the next months.
