Social housing

Wikepedia; “Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by not-for-profit organizations, or by a combination of the two, usually with the aim of providing affordable housing.”

Social housing

In the Netherlands, the term social housing applies specifically to rental housing subsidized by the government. There is an understood social contract that all people be appropriately housed.

The housing system of the Netherlands has acquired an international reputation, because of its special nature and the way in which it has evolved. This sector accounts for 35% of the total housing stock. Whereas most other West European countries turned to privatization in the early seventies the Netherlands kept decades of public intervention.

Dutch housing stock according to sectors

Rent subsidy remains the core of public (social) housing in Holland, with an emphasis on the affordability of living space for the lower income groups.

The near future

As the Dutch population increasingly greys, the policies of the coming years will lie primarily in developing care centres and living services zones in communities and neighbourhoods. Living services zones are areas where institutions involved in elderly care.

In investment prognoses for the period 2005-2015, it is assumed that housing associations will invest more than €64bn in social housing.

Sources: Dutch Social Housing in a nutshell