|
|
|
|
|
CECODHAS HOUSING EUROPE NEWS
|
|
MEETING WITH EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER FOR CONSUMER PROTECTION & HEALTH NEVEN MIMICA
CECODHAS Housing Europe President, Kurt Eliasson, and Secretary General, Sorcha Edwards, met together with a delegation from IUT, the International Union of Tenants, the European Commissioner for Consumer Protection & Health Neven Mimica at DG SANCO in Brussels. Kurt Eliasson stressed the importance of housing related health issues such as the health impacts of fuel poverty, mental health, ageing and health and the issue of dealing with asbestos removal. The IUT raised concerns of the lack of attention given to rising rents and inadequate tenants rights in Europe. Both CECODHAS Housing Europe and IUT appreciated Commissioner Mimica's view of the importance of ensuring that the European Semester process of economic surveillance considers not only macro-economic targets and public deficit goals but also the social effects.The meeting revealed clearly the need for housing to be considered within the remit of DG SANCO ‘s future activities. As an outcome of this meeting, CECODHAS Housing Europe and IUT will be present next Friday June 13th at a SANCO multi-stakeholder working group on active energy consumers where we will stressing the role of our members on affordable and energy efficient housing. Kurt Eliasson commented after the meeting ‘For Housing Europe the importance of a social impact analysis of the country specific recommendations as part of the semester process is key so we are glad to hear that this need for a stronger social dimension is also recognised within the European Commission’ . You can read this article in the Member's area of our website. Login is needed.
Commissioner Mimica welcomed our ideas in person and via Twitter! (thanks to an initial tweet from our colleague Michalis Goudis). See below the screen shot:
POWER HOUSE
The Power House Warm/Mediterranean climates TaskForce Seminar & Study Visits video is now available online. On the 13th of February 2014, members of the nearly-Zero Energy Challenge Warm/Mediterranean Climates TaskForce met in Barcelona to discuss the tools available for financing energy efficiency in social housing. The first part of the event “Financing opportunities for Energy Efficiency in Housing”, was mainly dedicated to the opportunities offered by the EU, particularly by the Structural Funds for the new programming period 2014-2020 as well as other supporting schemes and programmes in place, including the Horizon2020 Call for Proposals recently launched. The second part focused on the schemes used in Spain, France and Italy with some concrete examples of large refurbishment and new-build projects. Presentations can now be downloaded here. All the information regarding the Study Visit and the Mediterranean Manifesto launched can be found here.
POWER HOUSE IN THE GUARDIAN
The Guardian Housing Network Blog has recently shared the challenge and achievements of the Power House Nearly Zero Challenge project and how the European continent help the UK to better perform on energy efficiency.
MORE IN THE PRESS!
Last week CECODHAS Housing Europe Secretary General, Sorcha Edwards, was interviewed by Vita Europe, an online Italian journal focused on the European non for profit sector. Our Manifesto and main challenges social, cooperative and public housing face were the focal points of this interview available here.
NEW UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR
CECODHAS Housing Europe welcomed the new UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Leilani Farha, Director of the Canada Without Poverty. After a close collaboration with the previous rapporteur Raquel Rolnik, CECODHAS Housing Europe looks now at continuing this work together and has already open communication channels with Ms Leilani Farha.
Don't forget to follow #HousingEP14
 We have now reached more than 1000 followers on Twitter! 
|
|
2014 Country Specific Recommendations: what’s in it for the housing sector?
The European Commission has just released their annual Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs) based on the national reform programmes proposed by member states in the Spring 2014.
This is the third time CSRs are produced at EU level, and like in the two previous rounds, this year some countries received recommendations on how to structurally reform their housing markets, while others were suggested to implement some measures which may impact the work of housing providers. The fact that UK, Sweden and the Netherlands were addressed recommendations calling for significant reform to their housing markets did not come as a surprise, as they already received similar recommendations in 2013. Please read more in our website for detailed information. Read the full text of CSRs for all EU 28 countries here. For more information you can contact Alice Pittini at Alice.pittini@housingeurope.eu
GREEN WEEK
This week the European Commission DG Environment and DG Interpretation held the Green Week, a .3-day long event in Brussels addressing the key points to move towards a circular economy aiming at zero waste and positive energy buildings. Resource efficiency within construction and building sector were between the key discussions of the sessions where the environmental, economic, energy and social impacts of a building life cycle was stressed. Keep posted to our newsupdate for a more concrete and detailed article on this topic.
|
|
|
NATIONAL AND MEMBERS NEWS
|
|
BSHF
The finalists and winners of the World Habitat Awards 2013/2014 were announced during the seventh World Urban Forum recently held in Medellin (Colombia). At the closing ceremony of the World Urban Forum, the Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Joan Closs, gave the awards to USA 100,000 Homes Campaign project aiming at ending homelessness counting with more than 100 organisations involved which campaign ends this month of July and has already home more than 44,000 people and the Hebron Old City Rehabilitation Programme in Palestine, project based on securing decent housing for inhabitants of the Israeli occupied territory of Hebron Old City. This project helped people moving back to the Old City as a result of improved economic and social conditions. Now international peer exchange activities will be organised to visit the awarded projects and promote good practices. More information here.
REMINDER! USH and CECODHAS Housing Europe at Solar Decathlon 2014
We remind you hotels are running out of vacancies due to the large number of participants expected for the Solar Decathlon Europe 2014. Please book your place as soon as possible! We hope to meet you next 2, 3, 4th of July 2014 in Versailles!
|
|
ERHIN Responsible Housing Awards on its way!
ERHIN is now proceeding to select the best CSR practices to be rewarded at its final event next October 6th. More information on that day will be coming soon so keep posted for more details and follow us @CSRHousing and ERHIN.
ELOSH Local Coalitions Call for CECODHAS Housing Europe Members Participation
The ELOSH project website is now online! There you could find detailed information about the project and the partners, together with an e-leaflet and more information we will be updating on regular basis. If you wish to know more about the project please contact Julien Dijol or Alicia Gomez Campos.
TRENT & DOVE: Request to share best practice
Trent & Dove Housing is a housing association based in the Midlands, England, that provides affordable housing for rent and part ownership together with other advice services for the community. Trent and Dove would like to benchmark themselves against others to better improve their work and services and exchange good practices. On those regards, we would like to inform you about their willingness to get in touch with any organisations outside the UK willing to address this exchange with them specially on/
Perfomance
service delivery
Governance
If your members could be interested, please do not hesitate in contacting M. Ron Dougan at ron.dougan@trentanddove.org, Chief Executive of Trent & Dove Housing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
