FEANTSA’s statement on the Report on the housing crisis in the European Union
FEANTSA takes note of the adoption of the Report on the housing crisis in the European Union with the aim of proposing solutions for decent, sustainable and affordable housing, voted in the Plenary of the European Parliament on the 10th of March. We welcome the EP’s strong call to action on homelessness, whilst expressing concern about the overall coherence of the report from the perspective of ensuring access to adequate housing for all.
We welcome Parliament’s clear call on the Commission and Member States to take urgent action on homelessness. The report calls for a strengthening of the European Platform on Combatting Homelessness. Parliament calls on the Commission to support Member States in tackling homelessness through exchange, coordination, technical assistance, capacity building and policy support. It demands that a strengthened Child Guarantee prevent and tackle child homelessness.
Considering our mandate to advocate for the prevention and eradication of homelessness through access to permanent housing solutions, as well as social support where needed, we especially welcome the strong call to the European Commission and the Member States to build capacity for and develop housing-led approaches, as well as to ensure access to social housing for people experiencing homelessness. We welcome the Parliament’s call to scale up Housing First and to tackle discrimination against people experiencing homelessness. We also support the call for an annual European housing report including data on homelessness.
The final report reflects how challenging it has been to find consensus on an EU approach to the housing crisis in the EP. We acknowledge that the report came a long way from the first version put forward by the rapporteur, in September 2025. However, we also note that the report is marked by significant tensions between the social and economic dimensions of housing, with references to housing as a social right and the strengthening of its public good nature through support for public, social, cooperative, non-profit and limited-profit housing potentially undermined.
In this regard, we are particularly concerned about the reading of the housing crisis through a simplistic supply and demand lens, about the housing simplification agenda around planning and permitting, as well as about the over-reliance on private investment and public-private partnerships. The report also takes a very reductive view of housing financialisation. If the objective of European policy-making efforts is to deliver not merely more housing units, but progress on the social fairness agenda to which access to adequate housing is central, a human rights approach should have prevailed. Such an approach acknowledges that we cannot treat the housing needs of people experiencing homelessness and those of students in general as being of equal urgency, but also that we cannot equate the right to adequate housing with the right to property. We are disappointed about the report’s selective reading of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights in relation to housing, especially the disproportionate focus on property ownership and the exclusion of any reference to article 7 on respect for private and family life, including the home, despite the legal obligation for MS and EU institutions to respect all Charter rights. The report’s recommendations on squatting are disproportionate, stigmatising, and risk contributing to the criminalisation of housing exclusion rather than addressing its root causes.
Among the very few amendments that went through in the Plenary, one asks for strengthening the implementation of the European Child Guarantee to combat social exclusion, including homelessness, through a dedicated budget of 20 billion euros in the next MFF. We welcome this reinforced call for the Child Guarantee to deliver for homeless children. A second one urges the Commission to propose a Council Recommendation addressing the youth housing crisis. On this point, we reiterate our position that future housing policy interventions should be based on and prioritise addressing socio-economic needs and vulnerabilities, which are cross-cutting across demographic groups.
We look forward to contributing our perspective on the fight against homelessness in the future work of the European Parliament and Commission on implementing the Affordable Housing Plan.
For more information, contact Ioana Vlad.