“European alliance for sustainable and inclusive social housing in France” is the name of a newly established partnership between the Union sociale pour l’habitat (French’s national union of social housing organizations), the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (Deposits and Consignments Fund, a French public sector financial institution) acting via its Banque des Territoires unit, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB). It aims to provide and promote the access of French social housing organizations to European funding.

The Banque des Territoires mobilizes loans from the CEB and the EIB for long-term investment in social housing. The intermediation mechanism is designed to ensure that French social housing companies have a direct, fair and coherent access to European funding and that the loans are available for all housing development projects, regardless of their size and their location in the country.

The funding is also used to finance measures to combat climate change, to promote social inclusion and to back economically or socially vulnerable people corresponding to the European Pillar of Social Rights of the European Union. The new social housing alliance aims to bring Europe closer to its citizens and to improve the communication between beneficiary households and local authorities.

It is an important contribution of France to the Recovery Plan for the EU (“Next Generation EU”) and to the EU renovation wave within the framework of the European Green Deal.

Our tip: If you want to know more about the #SocialHousingAlliance, you should follow Laurent Ghekiere on twitter. He is the President of the Housing Europe Observatory and the Director of European Affairs at Union sociale pour l’habitat.