PRESS RELEASE
ENTITIES AND PUBLIC POLICIES
February 22, 2017
SOCIAL HOUSING
THE CHALLENGE OF ACCESS
FOR LOW-INCOME AND DISADVANTAGED
HOUSEHOLDS
Social housing plays a vital role in France: the 4.8 million social housing units account for one-
sixth of all housing units and about half of all rental stock
. In 2014, €17.5 billion in public
aid was
allocated to it.
In a context of
citizens’
high expectations and
the State’s
sustained action over time, the Cour
des comptes and the regional and territorial courts of audit of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Auvergne-
Rhône-Alpes, Île-de-France and Pays de la Loire have carried out an evaluation of public social
housing policy from the perspective of the law’s primary objective
: to provide lower-income and
disadvantaged households with access to housing.
The financial
courts’ assessment confirms
that social housing renders a service to the
community, but it also reveals obstacles that reduce the efficiency and consistency of this
public policy.
Their report is accompanied by regional reports that retrace the specific investigations made in
in six territories (conurbation community in the Cergy-Pontoise and Valenciennes urban areas,
the Grenoble, Nantes and Nice metropolitan areas, and the
département
of Haute-Vienne).
A policy that fails to provide housing to all eligible households within a reasonable
time period
Social housing tenants pay rents that are substantially lower than those charged in the private sector. The
difference is 40%, on average, amounting to
a total of about €13 billion
a year. However, there are about
1.9 million applicants on the waiting lists for social housing, and the process for obtaining social housing
is long, complex, and not very transparent: one quarter of the HLM low-rent housing organisations publish
their allocation criteria.
Social housing is increasingly earmarked for households with the lowest incomes, except in the Paris
region (Île-de-France), where there is a virtually even breakdown among income categories. Nationwide,
only one half of tenant households below the poverty line live in social housing, and barely 40% of the
stock’s
capacity is allocated to them, even though there is enough to accommodate all of them. Moreover,
48% of social housing tenants are not in the low-income or disadvantaged household categories, since
the income ceilings for access to the largest share of social housing stock mean than two thirds of the
population is eligible. Very poor households face above average difficulties obtaining social housing, and
the social housing system remains incapable of accommodating households whose income is more than
50% below the poverty line.
Social housing inertia, an obstacle to adapting to changing needs
The availability of social housing suffers from a failure to adjust to geographical shifts in the job market,
to changes in family makeup, and to the decline in
applicants’ financial resources
. Seventy-three per cent
of social housing demand is concentrated in areas where 53% of the offer is located; 61% of the lowest-
rent stock is located in areas with slack demand, while 73% of demand is in areas where the offer is tight.
The ratio of pending applications to allocations during the year varies from less than one (in the
département
of Indre) to 16 to 1 (Paris). Areas with declining population are faced with troubling levels of
vacancies.
The type of housing on offer is no longer suited to the growing demand for small units, which is due to
household splitting and an increase in single-parent families. Single people now account for 42% of the
demand and two-member households 65%.
A policy oriented too much toward new construction and not enough toward active
management of the existing stock
Social housing policy is oriented toward achieving ambitious objectives for new construction (150,000
units). These objectives are not based on precise analyses of local needs. Nor do they stem from the
social housing law (
Solidarité et renouvellement urbain
–
SRU
), which requires municipalities to provide
a minimum percentage of social housing units, since this obligation represents only 60,000 new units a
year. In practice, the construction effort is costly in terms of public aid (
€7.6 billion
) and insufficiently
targeted on high-demand areas and on housing for the lowest-income households, which represents only
one-quarter of new construction.
Simultaneously, management efforts are insufficient: a one-point improvement in the housing stock
rotation rate or a one-point decrease in the vacancy rate would represent an annual offer equivalent to
the construction of about 50,000 housing units a year, with no need for public financing. The procedures
for moving renters whose income has risen above the eligibility ceiling are only marginally effective.
Consistency needed at the local level
Cooperation among local parties at the inter-municipality level is the best way to address the priority of
accommodating low-income and disadvantaged households. Most of these parties agree that pooling their
reservation rights is a way to increase the transparency and efficiency of allocation procedures.
The issue of social diversity arises due to the imbalance between the types of housing in certain areas:
63% of the residents of priority neighbourhoods in urban policy live in social housing, compared with 13%
outside these neighbourhoods. Housing policy needs to provide for an ultimate reduction in the proportion
of social housing units in priority neighbourhoods, while in other neighbourhoods, where three quarters of
the social housing stock is located, available units or ones that will be developed need to be offered to
households with the lowest incomes. This policy implies an ability to appropriately relocate the lowest
rents and to facilitate the readjustment of rents between the facilities managed by social landlords so as
not to destabilise their overall financial equilibrium.
Recommendations
The Cour des comptes has formulated 13 recommendations to bring improvements in three ways: target
policy more on low-income and disadvantaged households; offer more rental units without increasing
public expenditures; increase transparency and better manage this policy at the inter-municipal level.
Read the report
PRESS CONTACT:
Ted Marx
Head of communication
T
+33 (0)1 42 98 55 62
tmarx@ccomptes.fr
Denis Gettliffe
Head of Press Relations
T
+33 (0)1 42 98 55 77
dgettliffe@ccomptes.fr
@Courdescomptes
ccomptes