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A Review of “Social Housing across Europe”

This is an ambitious book and a major contribution to the literature on social housing. It presents a broad picture of the experiences with social housing in seven countries (the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Spain, Czech Republic, the Netherlands and France). To what extent, the book asks, is there a European social housing model? Based on a conference organised by the French government, the book seeks to ‘promote new approaches to the issue of exclusion in relation to housing, and to provide a fresh angle on France’s social housing system’ (p. 9). As an academic, whose work has focused on US housing policy, this book provides a great deal of useful information and insights about social housing in countries with diverse cultures and political and economic contexts. In many cases, the parallels to US initiatives and challenges are striking. Issues pertaining to the loss of social housing units; whether those most in need should have priority access to social housing units; the implications of concentrating large numbers of poor families in a given location; and comparisons between subsidies that provide support to individuals households vs. housing developments are all familiar to housing practitioners, policymakers, and academics on both sides of the Atlantic. This book provides a further reminder of how much these various stakeholders can learn from their collective experiences. In the first part of the book, each author presents key historical points and housing issues facing the particular country, with a focus on social housing. While the content of each of these chapters varies considerably, there is a general theme: change is occurring across Europe with reference to housing policies affecting lower income households and, in particular, social housing, including ‘its finance mechanisms and sources of funding’ (p. 163). The chapters on the UK, Germany and the Czech Republic discuss the loss of large segments of the social housing stock. The UK chapter primarily addresses the move towards privatisation, which became a key focus of the 1980s, although chapter author, Peter Malpass, argues that this is a deeply embedded value in the country’s housing policy. In Germany, the loss of social housing