Community-Based Housing

The concept of community-based housing incorporates a wide range of principles and methods in the interest of mobilizing resources for resolving the housing issues of groups that depend on social interventions, namely, those in the public rental sector. It is intended for families and households with low to moderate incomes and people with special needs, such as seniors, people with disabilities, single parents, young people, migrants, people escaping [Page 76]domestic violence, people at risk of homelessness, people escaping natural disasters, and ethnic minorities. Community-based housing providers include, but are not limited to, international and national large and small housing associations, state and local government authorities, public and private partnerships, church-based providers, housing cooperatives, and other service provider organizations.

Community-based housing operates through the context of improving the planning strategy for a city's sustainable development. Social, economic, and cultural relations in such communities can have a direct impact on the design and construction of housing, which must be adapted to the needs of the above-mentioned residential groups, as well as to town planning solutions when dealing with larger community-based housing regions.

Effective implementation of community-based housing requires planners to (a) clearly formulate the characteristics of successful social housing, (b) systematize needs and resources according to the profile of residents, (c) be acquainted with the strategies of the most important social actors for the purpose of securing various kinds of assistance, and (d) recommend solutions based on the lessons gained through negative experiences with informal housing settlements. Social housing is differentiated by three essential characteristics:

• 1.
  In the production sphere, it is not subjected to profit interests.
• 2.
  In the distributive sphere, the administrative allocation is based on specifically defined needs, with payment capability not given prime importance.
• 3.
  The quantity and quality of financial participation are more subject to the political orientation of the ruling majority than other types of financing.

Factors that exert a strong influence on community-based housing activities include

• level of economic development,
• demographic maturity,
• institutional specifics, and
• dominant values and political orientations of the society.

At the end of the 20th century, the deconstruction of socialistic housing systems occurred in many European countries. In comparison with

Western systems at the beginning of this transition, such changes have been dramatic in the domain of availability of flat privatization (ideological context, scope, actors, effects). The cost-based issue of available housing is being resolved through the forms of the public, nonprofit sector, either private or rental. At the same time, the new concept of social housing in such countries has not yet been fully defined and implemented, nor has the aimed intention of subsidies.

The changing interpretation of the term social reflects, from an epistemological point of view, an altered model of social integration, an escalation in the volatility of working relations, changes in family models, and reconfiguration of state wealth. Housing is no longer seen as “general public property;” it has been modified by an approach of self-responsibility and individualized risk, and there has also been a change in target groups. Due to the fragmentation of housing policy between privatization and the policy of social service, there has been some resentment toward resolving the problems of the poor in some large urban centers of Europe. Critics contend that the effects of such programs succeed only in furthering a cycle of dependence. Meanwhile, throughout Europe, the dispersion of poverty based on housing status does not necessarily reflect the degree of social and economic development of some countries.

...