Japan seems to be in a transitional period concerning its housing market. The increasing number of vacant homes and the need for a "safety net" for vulnerable citizens are posing demanding challenges to the authorities. A delegation from the Housing Bureau at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) visited Brussels last week to draw some inspiration from the way public, cooperative and social housing providers operate in Europe. As a follow up to a very interesting meeting between the delegation and Housing Europe Secretary General and Research Coordinator, Sorcha Edwards and Alice Pittini, we interviewed Mr. Kenji Hamamoto, Deputy Director at the Housing Bureau of the Ministry to know more about the housing reality in Japan.

Collecting, processing and using data will help housing associations to become more effective and provide in the end better housing for more people. Developing a sector-wide data standard is important in this process, as it will allow associations to share and compare their figures and for their IT-based systems to be able to ‘talk’ to each other.

Every month we introduce you to one of the people leading the work of our member organisations. In this edition, we land in Stockholm to meet Anders Nordstrand, the new CEO of SABO. Anders took over from Kurt Eliasson in 2016 the lead in the Swedish Association of Public Housing Companies. He provides with insights concerning the perception of housing in Sweden and shares some thoughts about the current challenges. Plus, as usual, he unveils his way of balancing life with work.