Notes de la rédaction
This is the press release related to the article from Alice Romainville, published on January 25, 2010. Read the article.
As we know, the housing issue is a major concern for the inhabitants of Brussels at many levels. This of course pertains to the increase in rents and housing prices and the related difficulty for the inhabitants of Brussels to find housing. The share of household budgets dedicated to housing has been rising continuously over the past twenty years. Furthermore, the housing issue is closely associated with that of the revitalisation of disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Brussels, which – unless something is done – will undergo most of the predicted demographic expansion as well as a concentration of poverty. Finally, the housing problem brings into play the residential appeal of a city which seeks to attract or to keep middle-class households, in particular for income tax and budgetary reasons.
The Brussels government has made this issue a priority; the housing policy therefore represents close to 6% of regional expenditure overall. Since the creation of the Brussels-Capital Region in 1989, approximately 40% of this budget has gone towards the maintenance and rental of a stock of 38,000 social housing units, which has become exceedingly insufficient today (with some 33,000 households on waiting lists); the rest is earmarked essentially for ownership support and urban renewal policies.
In the 34th issue of Brussels Studies, Alice Romainville, geographer at ULB (IGEAT), focuses on the ownership support policies implemented by the Brussels Region to channel private investment towards certain working-class areas to which it would like to attract capital and a more well-to-do population. Her analysis shows that these measures are based on unclear objectives, which makes it difficult to define them precisely. Therefore, the residential appeal and social mix objectives are interpreted in a variable manner, leading to fluctuations in the implemented policies which are sometimes addressed to households with average incomes, and sometimes to those with very modest resources.
This hesitation is accompanied by a geographical dualisation of the effects of these measures. The tools addressed to the ‘households with average incomes’ are mainly used in the central neighbourhoods, in particular along the canal, whereas the measures addressed to the most disadvantaged households cause migrations from the central areas to the western part of the Region.
Of course, the success of this ownership support is relative: although it has allowed a clear improvement in the situation of the households which have benefited from it, use is not made of it very frequently. Nevertheless, it leads to movements of populations which may have a considerable social impact, in particular by intensifying gentrification trends and the increase in rent already under way in certain targeted neighbourhoods. Behind what is said about social mix, there seems to be rather a will to oversee gentrification. With the absence of private rent control, how can one claim that there is a will to avoid the exclu
References
Romainville, Alice, “Who benefits from home ownership support policies in Brussels?”, Brussels Studies [Online], General collection, No 34, 25 January 2010. URL: https://journals.openedition.org/brussels/742
Contact
Benjamin Wayens, Senior Editor: bwayens[at]brusselsstudies.be