Housing Europe and the Collaborative Housing Alliance used a Brussels meeting to press the EU to embed permanent affordability into its upcoming Affordable Housing Act and investment frameworks.
In a street in Molenbeek, Brussels, 32 families live in homes they helped bring to life from architectural design to governance rules.
The development, known as Arc-en-Ciel and delivered by Community Land Trust Brussels, stands as a working example of housing removed permanently from speculative markets.
Last month, the site hosted a gathering of some of Europe’s leading collaborative and non-profit housing organisations. Their message to EU policymakers was direct: lasting affordability cannot depend on short-term subsidies or temporary market corrections. It must be structurally embedded.
A Strategic Moment for Housing Policy
The meeting, convened by the Collaborative Housing Alliance, brought together organisations including World Habitat, MOBA Housing, the European CLT Network, urbaMonde, the European Student Cooperative Housing Alliance and Housing Europe members.
The timing was significant. The European Union is entering the implementation phase of its European Affordable Housing Plan. Key elements include work on an Affordable Housing Act, a housing simplification package, a pan-European investment platform and negotiations over the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).
For collaborative housing providers, this represents a decisive policy window. Their objective is to ensure that long-term affordability mechanisms are integrated into funding criteria, legal frameworks and investment rules from the outset rather than added retroactively.
From Niche to Recognised Sector
A recurring theme throughout the discussions was that community-led housing is no longer operating at the margins.
Across Europe, more than 350 Community Land Trust (CLT) initiatives are now active, collectively delivering around 7,000 homes, with roughly 25,000 additional homes in development pipelines. In Berlin, housing cooperatives account for approximately 10% of the housing stock and consistently maintain some of the city’s lowest average rents.
In Catalonia, cooperative provider Sostre Cívic recently secured a €31 million loan from the Council of Europe Development Bank — a move seen by participants as evidence that cooperative housing has gained institutional credibility as a reliable non-profit provider.
Meanwhile, MOBA Housing has introduced an accelerator mechanism across Central and Southeast Europe to provide early-stage financing for emerging cooperative projects. Its first €100,000 loan supported a student housing cooperative in Budapest, with repayments structured to recycle capital into future developments.
Financing Long-Term Social Value
Investment structures dominated much of the conversation, particularly as EU-level funding instruments are being shaped under the next MFF.
Participants advocated for the development of a non-profit finance ecosystem that includes public development banks, cooperative financial institutions and ethical lenders capable of supporting housing provision without prioritising high financial returns.
Examples highlighted included GLS Bank in Germany, Coop57 in Catalonia and Rabobank in the Netherlands. These institutions were cited as models of finance aligned with social objectives rather than speculative gain.
The central concern is that if EU housing investment criteria are not explicitly designed to protect long-term affordability, public funds could flow into projects that appear affordable at entry but gradually revert to market-rate pricing over time.
Climate Goals and the Risk of Displacement
Renovation policy and climate targets also featured prominently in discussions. As the EU accelerates energy efficiency upgrades under climate commitments, concerns are mounting about “renoviction” the displacement of residents following property upgrades that increase rental or resale values.
The Interreg Upcycling Trust initiative was presented as a model for addressing this risk. By pairing energy retrofitting with safeguards against speculative resale, the project seeks to ensure that public investment in climate measures does not inadvertently trigger displacement.
Participants noted that without embedded affordability protections, energy upgrades in high-demand urban areas can unintentionally intensify housing pressures.
Sector Leaders Call for Structural Reform
Sorcha Edwards, Secretary General of Housing Europe, argued that Europe requires a critical mass of genuinely affordable housing to counteract the effects of financialisation.
Scaling non-profit housing provision, she said, must go hand in hand with reform of land policy and housing finance systems. Without structural reform, isolated projects will struggle to influence broader market dynamics.
Matthew Baldwin, head of the European Commission’s Housing Task Force, welcomed the dialogue and emphasised the importance of incorporating practical experience from community-based providers as EU implementation moves forward.
Geert De Pauw of Community Land Trust Brussels framed the sector’s role succinctly: collaborative housing actors are not asking for “a bigger slice of the cake,” but are already “baking it together” within communities across Europe.
The Policy Choices Ahead
Community Land Trusts operate by separating land ownership from building ownership, removing land from the speculative market and applying resale formulas that preserve affordability across generations. Cooperative housing and limited-profit housing companies pursue similar long-term affordability objectives through different legal and financial structures.
What unites these models is their permanence. Affordability is embedded into governance and ownership structures, not dependent on temporary subsidy or fluctuating market conditions.
As the EU advances its Affordable Housing Plan, the key question is whether upcoming legislation, investment criteria and funding mechanisms will reflect this long-term perspective or whether community-led providers will once again need to advocate from outside formal policy frameworks.
With implementation now underway, decisions taken in the coming months could determine whether Europe’s housing agenda produces durable social infrastructure or short-lived affordability gains.
Source: Housing Europe and Collaborative Housing Alliance meeting, Arc-en-Ciel, Molenbeek, Brussels, February 2026.
