From Tuesday, February 21, registrations are open for the International Social Housing Festival (ISHF), the most important international congress on social housing in Europe, which this year will take place in the city of Barcelona between 7 and 9 June. A highly anticipated event that will be possible thanks to the involvement and co-organization of the Barcelona City Council and Housing Europe, the European Federation of Public, Cooperative, and Social Housing.
After the experiences lived in Amsterdam 2017, Lyon 2019 and Helsinki 2021, the event will celebrate its fourth edition in the Catalan capital, and is expected to concentrate more than 1,500 attendees from around the world in the Palau de Congressos de Barcelona.
The members and partners of Housing Europe, present in 25 countries, represent 25 million homes, that is, 11% of the housing stock of the European Union. A meeting point where to generate synergies and build international partnerships in areas such as social innovation, financing, design, and evaluation of public policies. Attendees will include social and affordable housing providers, policymakers, urban planners, architects, activists, researchers, and other organizations dedicated to decent and affordable housing around the world.
Although Barcelona has a housing system in a phase of development and consolidation, the ISHF next June seeks to highlight some of the innovations being implemented by the Barcelona City Council in terms of public housing, which may be of interest to cities and countries that have more robust models. To make this possible, this edition will reinforce the presence of institutions and entities from southern Europe and Latin America.
Among other issues that will be at the center of the debate will be the multiple challenges posed by the current economic and social scenario that affect and condition public housing policies, such as the renovation of the housing stock, the care and treatment of the elderly, the fight against discrimination and segregation, the access of young people to a home, and the expansion of tourist housing, among many other issues of interest.
A panorama is full of obstacles in which Barcelona has become an example of reinvention and innovation. For example, the expansion of its public housing stock, which has gone from 7,500 homes in 2015 to more than 11,500 by 2023, as well as the various types of housing promoted by the city council, which help to cover housing emergencies more quickly and effectively.
In this way, Barcelona will repeat as the host of an international event of reference, after hosting last summer the European Network for Housing Research (ENHR), and more recently, last November, the Forum of Housing and Renovation of Barcelona (FHAR).
To register, as well as for more information, you can consult the ISHF website, follow the official account on Facebook and Twitter, as well as subscribe to the official newsletter of the event.