Housing Europe leading or co-organising 16 events during the 3rd International Social Housing Festival

Housing Europe has put together an overview that gives you a taste of what you can experience in mid-June and would ideally trigger some immediate mouse clicks on websites for plane tickets and hotels. 

As our Secretary-General likes to say, the International Social Housing Festival is "a chance for everyone working on putting the social back into housing to come together and learn from a country that is doing that very well".

If you would have to choose a day or two out of the four, make sure to reserve your seat for Housing Europe's annual conference, "What if... we imagined Next Generation housing with the youth?" on June, 16th at 10:00 local time. In 2022, the European Year of Youth, European public, cooperative, and social housing providers would like to change the narrative for the better. The EU has committed to building a better future for young generations, making their days ahead greener, more inclusive, and digital – three dimensions that are intrinsic to housing. So, we will zoom in on forward-looking policy solutions supporting the youth, hear from social and affordable housing providers who are already addressing the challenge with innovation, and give the floor to youth advocacy organisations to speak out clearly about what their needs are. For any further information, contact Diana Yordanova.

In the late afternoon, we hope to see you at the 4th European Responsible Housing Awards ceremony, a very special initiative led by Housing Europe, the International Union of Tenants (IUT), and DELPHIS that has turned into a tradition celebrating innovation and a different way of doing. Meet the winners in 2022 who offer more than a roof, ensure a fair energy transition, secure fair financing for housing affordability, foster community participation, or go the extra mile in extraordinary circumstances. The event is happening on June, 16th from 17:00 to 19:00 and will be followed by a real-life celebration and networking until 20:00. Get in touch with Andreea Nacu to know more.

Housing Europe’s General Assembly for members and partners only will be held on Friday (June, 17th) at Allas Sea Pool from 10:00 to 12:30. Find out more here and contact Abderrahim Khairi if you have a question.

Housing Europe is hosting or co-hosting another 13 events. Before we dive into every one of them, we would like to bring your attention to two important practicalities – the programme and the registration.

Scroll and explore the official programme.
You can pre-select the dates, topics, and types of events that interest you.
https://socialhousingfestival.eu/events/festival-program/

Register here
https://socialhousingfestival.eu/registration/

A few things to keep in mind

• With one single registration form, each participant can register for the festival and also for the different events.
• Most events require registration due to maximum venue capacities or group sizes. Events that don’t require registration are mainly exhibition stands and online events.
• Participants can register for the festival and return to their registration form later to register for the events. You can modify the registration and change your choice after you have submitted the registration form, meaning you can change which events you will attend. 

Stay in touch also on social media via the #ISHF2022 hashtag

Chronologically speaking, here is where you can find Housing Europe on the programme. Would you be interested in taking part or offering input for some of the sessions below? Contact the colleague in charge.

14th June – 17th June 2022

European Affordable Housing Consortium: Sustainable Housing for Social Impact (SHAPE-EU project) Stand

Helsinki City Hall Lobby (Event Square)

As of March 2022, 10 partners have joined efforts to shape the envisaged by the Affordable Housing Initiative 100 lighthouse projects by creating blueprints for a just energy transition with affordability and liveability at its heart.

SHAPE-EU is becoming the point of reference for a socially-inclusive Renovation Wave and New European Bauhaus.

Coordinated by Housing Europe and co-funded by the European Union's Single Market Programme, the goal of the project is to support social housing providers, public authorities, and SMEs to deliver social and affordable housing district renovations, which include innovative features, such as the use of smart and circular technologies and new approaches created and managed jointly with the local communities.

• What are the trusted renovation technologies?
• How can we balance the challenge of meeting renovation & new construction?
• How can we find the financial sources to cover the costs?

On the lookout for a blueprint for Fair Energy Transition, these are the questions that the European Affordable Housing Consortium: Sustainable Housing for Social Impact, SHAPE-EU works on answering. Meet João Gonçalves at the stand and get to discuss how you can be part of this movement.

DAY 1

14th June

9:00-11:00 EET
National Museum, Ateljee

Living walls, green façades, and green roofs – greening our building stock in the literal sense

Arguably, the time has never been more appropriate to shape the way our houses will be renovated in the coming decades. Engineered green roofs, walls and façades - offer opportunities to grow plants on the building stock itself. They are a promising nature-based solution to achieve significant energy savings in existing buildings, whilst contributing to lowering local air pollution, reducing biodiversity loss, improving air quality and noise, and elevating health and well-being. In the past years, public, social and cooperative housing providers have been ahead of the curve regarding innovation.

With this event, a group of industry experts will share their knowledge on Vertical Greening Systems, such as Living Walls and Green Façades, and Green Roofs, with the aim of discussing with social building providers and policymakers the possibilities for wider integration of living walls and green façades in social housing, including how to tackle persistent costs and maintenance-related barriers to a more generalised up-taking. João Gonçalves has the details.

14th June

10:30 – 13:30 EET
Event Square, Lobby of Helsinki City Hall

RE-DWELL Delivering Affordable and Sustainable in Europe

Join this workshop where you will hear about the basic notions of affordability and sustainability, and the interlinks between them, introduced by RE-DWELL senior and early-stage researchers, representing 10 higher-education institutions across Europe. A conceptual map will include relevant information from the cases presented in the parallel exhibition on affordable and sustainable housing. Contact Alice Pittini to hear more.

DAY 2

15th June

09:00–10:30 EET
Kino Regina, Helsinki Central Library Oodi

Climate-proof and resilient social housing

Only a few days before ISHF, three multi-disciplinary teams of experts will co-design and prototype climate-proof affordable housing neighbourhood solutions, based on a more and more emerging climate challenge: flooding.

This friendly competition will be held at the first New European Bauhaus Festival in Brussels. The winning team will travel to Helsinki to present its idea to the audience of this ISHF session and kick-start a key conversation about how we can build back better in a fair way and ensure that everybody’s homes will be adapted to the changing climate. Reach out to Clara Mafé for further details.

15th June

10:30–12:00 EET
Event square, Lobby of Helsinki City Hall

Homelessness to housing: improve the synergies between policy strategy & delivery through social work

The Housing Solutions Platform led by Housing Europe, FEANTSA, and Fondation Abbé Pierre will bring together key actors to explore the relationship between housing policy strategy and the reality of social work in bringing housing to those who need it most. In other words: how to successfully implement Housing First programmes on the ground.

We will gather housing providers and social workers supporting people to access and keep housing. This workshop will provide a space for dialogue about what is done on the ground and what do both sides need to facilitate the process of access to housing. The Platform will bring the practical view of housing advisors from Finland and Denmark to show how the approach of having these specific experts works in day-to-day life and how it can be adopted by other countries in Europe and beyond. Edit Lakatos is ready to tell you more.

15th June

12:30–14:30 EET
Event square, Lobby of Helsinki City Hall

Tools to Tame Financialization

Housing Europe, #Housing2030 Lead Writer, Julie Lawson and finance chapter writer, Michelle Norris from the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice have embarked on a journey to address the elephant in the room when it comes to housing affordability – the financialisation of housing and the tools that could tame it. Expect responses from an international panel consisting of policymakers, advocates, researchers, bank experts, and the view of our sector. Contact Dara Turnbull for more information and tune in for our ‘Making a house a home’ podcasts on the topic.

15th June

12:30-16:00 EET
Kino Regina, Helsinki Central Library Oodi

Decarbonizing the housing stock in an inclusive and affordable way

This event will present the UNECE-Housing Europe-UN-Habitat study “#Housing2030: Effective policies for affordable housing in the UNECE region” containing a toolkit on affordable climate-neutral housing to demonstrate its use in mitigating potential negative social impacts of decarbonization strategies on vulnerable sections of society, particularly young people. Dara Turnbull is your point of contact.

15th June

13:00-15:00 EET
Meeting Park Kamppi

Circular renovation of affordable housing - let us show you how!

The workshop will explore how social providers can plan and successfully execute circular building renovations in a resource and cost-efficient way. Based on the know-how and solutions from Horizon 2020 innovation projects HOUSEFUL and Drive 0 on circularity in the residential sector, participants will use ‘gamification’ methods to co-design a circular renovation in a theoretical public housing block, based on the current experience of the Growing Circle project in Portugal. Clara Mafé and Dara Turnbull can share more information about this event.

15th June

14:00-18:00 EET
Event square, Lobby of Helsinki City Hall

The new movement of certified energy mentors and supporters tackling energy poverty

In the year of record-high energy bills and the moment when ‘stay at home’ has been the norm for over two years, the EU-funded project, POWERPOOR calls on colleagues from public, cooperative, and social housing providers, municipalities, health and social workers, representatives from the academia and anyone who wants to be engaged in tackling the phenomenon to join a community of hundreds of POWERPOOR certified Energy Supporters and Mentors, working on the ground, enabling change and providing paths out of energy poverty in their regions. Come and get to see how you can become a certified POWERPOOR Energy Supporter and Mentor, be part of the movement, and support vulnerable households in your city or area. Reach out to Diana Yordanova for further details on this stand and what you can learn if you pass by.

DAY 3

16th June

16:00–17:30 EET
Hampurinkuja 1

The Path to #Housing2030 Walking Tour in Jätkäsaari

The main goal of this event is to take what was discussed in the #Housing2030 report off of the page and into the real world, showing attendees living breathing examples of good housing policies. This will help to make the key messages of #Housing2030 more tangible for policymakers and affordable housing stakeholders. The one-and-a-half-hour (90 minutes) walking tour includes presentations of new social and affordable housing solutions. The tour will be guided by professionals from various organisations based in Helsinki. Dara Turnbull is the point of contact for this excursion.

16th June

13:30-15:30 EET
Event square, Lobby of Helsinki City Hall

Housing cooperatives: a sustainable model for European and Mediterranean countries

Housing cooperatives from different European countries will present their ‘model’ and how they are innovating to respond to current challenges, such as climate change, ageing, affordable housing for youth towards more participatory forms of living. The audience can also interact with ministry representatives about whether and how the institutional setting can facilitate the cooperative model. Alice Pittini can provide you with further information.

16th June

16:00-17:30 EET
Ateljee, National Museum

People-centred energy transition in neighbourhoods

The EU-funded project syn.ikia Sustainable Plus-Energy Neighbourhoods will bring some its social housing demonstrators in Netherlands, Spain and Austria to share their first-hand experience in working towards decarbonisation while involving people and guaranteeing justice in the process. In the workshop we will work with social housing providers to assess how the different dimensions of environmental justice are applied. Co-creation tools will be used to encourage a dynamic, interactive and most importantly, fun discussion with all participants. Contact Clara Mafé for more info.

16th June

18:00-20:00 EET
Auditorium, National Museum

BBC StoryWorks & Housing Europe: Building Communities Series

Produced by BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions - the commercial content division of BBC Global News, Building Communities is an exciting new online film series, designed to showcase the benefits of forward-thinking social housing initiatives and challenge the persistent misconceptions around social mixing and housing quality. Through diverse voices and innovative organisations, Building Communities tells the stories of people from different walks of life living in social and affordable housing. The BBC team will also host a reception after the screening. Enjoy! Get to know more by contacting Diana Yordanova.

DAY 4

17th June

09:00-11:00 EET
Event square, lobby of Helsinki City Hall

Big Data and AI to transform building sector by increasing energy efficiency and improve quality of living

The increasing availability of quality data provides significant opportunities for better and more efficient performance monitoring and optimisation of smart buildings by enabling better understanding and offering further insights on all aspects affecting (directly or indirectly) their operation through Advanced Big Energy Data Analytics. The event aims at promoting the energy transition of the housing sector towards a more sustainable future. The demonstrations that will be presented in the context of the event will highlight how the MATRYCS project addresses several issues on buildings’ energy efficiency, such as methodologies for encouraging energy efficiency financing, monitoring and/or proposing energy efficiency refurbishments in the buildings sector and prioritising investment in buildings towards promoting sustainability. Drop a message to João Gonçalves to know more. 

Register here
https://socialhousingfestival.eu/registration/

• With one single registration form, each participant can register for the festival and also for the different events.
• Most events require registration due to maximum venue capacities or group sizes. Events that don’t require registration are mainly exhibition stands and online events.
• Participants can register for the festival and return to their registration form later to register for the events. You can modify the registration and change your choice after you have submitted the registration form, meaning you can change which events you will attend. 

We look forward to seeing you in Finland.

Spread the word with the #ISHF2022 hashtag.