Fair Ground Brussels: they make housing in Brussels permanently affordable
Making housing in Brussels permanently affordable. This is what the Fair Ground Brussels cooperative has started with. ‘How then?’ you may ask. Geert De Pauw, coordinator of the cooperative, told us about how to solve the housing crisis in our capital with a concrete solution. “Anyone who questions the way the housing market is organized can help with this.”
Until 2000, Brussels was a reasonable city compared to other European cities. “There was little social housing, but until then the private rental and owner-occupied market was de facto a kind of social market, because you could buy or rent a home reasonably affordably,” says Geert De Pauw, coordinator at Community Land Trust Brusselsone of the fourteen associations that make up the cooperative Fair Brussels has co-founded [1]† “From 2000 onwards, prices started to rise systematically. In 2010 they were twice as high and the prices are still rising.”
Rent on average two thirds of the income
“In a context where there are far too few social housing, this means that anyone who until then could find something on the private rental or owner-occupied market with a low income, now has nowhere to go. Therefore, the situation that overpaying much today are very poorly accommodated. The share of rent in a family income is far too high for many families.”
The middle bedrooms for a two-bedroom apartment is currently around 770 euros. The net income per month of a resident in Brussels is 1247.75 euros, according to figures from the Brussels Institute for Statistics and Analysis (IBSA). In other words: the first rent for a 2-bedroom apartment corresponds to two-thirds of the Brussels income. While a popular rule is that this should be a maximum of one third of your net salary, in order to have ‘enough’ money left to live on.
“It now takes 10 years for someone to gain access to a social”
specification, the waiting list for social housing continues to grow.” 62 percent of the inhabitants of Brussels are tenants. 50,000 households are waiting for social housing. While only 200 social housing units are built each year. “So there are more people waiting for social housing than there are social housing. And the social housing that is there very often becomes available, because the people who live there do not leave, because they have nowhere else to go,” says De Pauw. “It now takes 10 years to first access a social”, said Coline Van der Vorst coordinator of Fair Ground Brussels in a recent press release from the cooperative.
And if people gain access, there is still a chance that this is an unmodified, poor-quality home. The most special quality problems are houses that are too small and the presence of mold and moisture.
Mortgage on your child’s future
“There is very little available, especially for large families, aimed at living with too many in apartments that are too small,” says De Pauw. “Or think of people who initially are lucky enough to be able to rent social housing, but when they have children have to stay there because they cannot afford another, larger home.
This leads to situations of overpopulation, both in the private and social sectors. This is a super important issue for a family’s well-being. If you have to raise children in a place where many of them sleep in one bedroom, then that is a mortgage on the future of the children.”
“Many people also leave the city because they have no choice due to the high house prices,” explains De Pauw. “And the most extreme result is the increase in the number of homeless people growing year after year. It is a great scandal that in a city like Brussels, where there is so much, so many people have to live on the streets.”
Homes for people with low income
Fair Ground Brussels therefore removes homes from the market, including through citizen investments and impact investors, to make them available to people with a low income. These can be homeless people, but also other people who have difficulty renting something through the private market. All these homes are rented out through a social rental agency, resulting in a guarantee that this is done in a social way. “So at an affordable price, but also without racism De Pauw.
“The big difference with other homes that are currently being rented out by social rental offices is that these homes are permanent. This is very important in our model.” The way Fair Ground Brussels does this is by separating ownership of land and building. “When we buy or build a building, it is to keep it forever and to use it for a social purpose. We cannot sell for a profit. We are doing this by putting the land in a foundation of the cooperative and by putting it in the articles of association that the land will never be sold.”
“Normally, if you own a piece of land,” explains De Pauw, “you automatically own everything on it. And vice versa. When you buy a building, you automatically own the land below it. There are two ways to obtain the draft right and a long lease, so we use these to split the property between the two, which makes it possible to sell or rent the properties to residents with a lower income. the house becomes less expensive, because as the buyer of the tenant you do not pay for the land.”
“We then use the rates of the social rental offices, which are well below the market. The premise is that a person should pay no more than a third of their income in rent.”
No waiting list
Fair Ground Brussels now owns fourteen homes – all of which are now rented out – and three community spaces. “We do not set up a waiting list, but work with partner associations to allocate homes. The houses of the CALICO project in the Brussels municipality of Forest, for example, through the feminist association Angela.D assign to residents. They have made their own allocation rules.”
The homes in Anderlecht are available through the social rental office Lodging pour tous designated to people. “If we make homes for the homeless, we will die through the partner organizations l’Ilot and Les Petits Rien be assigned. They have their own systems and networks to do this.”
Fair Ground Brussels is therefore not a social housing company where you can register as a candidate tenant, explains De Pauw. “The intention is, together with all our partner associations, to develop projects tailored to their needs, which then act as an intermediary between us and the people who need a home. The aim is to offer about 1,000 homes within ten years. Compared to the great distress record that is now prevailing, this is still a drop in the bucket, but this is what we are striving for at the very least.”
Office spaces
In addition, it is important in Brussels to remove other spaces from the market in the same way. “We want to purchase office space for associations and social economy companies. Here we are going to use the same logic.”
“After corona, there has been a certain saturation of the office market, because many people now work from home more than in the past. We are thinking of building office buildings there to create spaces for Brussels associations.
The intention is to provide many communal areas, so that a non-spatial space is created. In this area we are now working on concrete projects for culture and together with other partners, both from the social sector and from the artistic sector, the social economy. Very diverse partners who recognize themselves in a common vision. Within this, we want to realize a large joint project in the months to come. Preferably with a few more houses.”
Innovative is that the Brussels Beursterrein also combines homes with rooms for associations. “Where possible, we want to mix the two, so start projects where both homes and spaces for activities find a place.” discussions of the cooperative to fill a gap in the Brussels landscape
Brussels residents who want to do something about the housing situation
“We also believe that there is interest in this. From the tenants certainly, but also from citizens and investors.” Fair Ground Brussels projects are implemented through bank loans, the issuance of bonds and by drawing on citizens’ savings.
De Pauw: “Investing in real estate, even if we cannot offer a high return – or even in the start-up phase – remains a safe investment. Surely there are many people who have savings and want to invest in a natural way. That’s what we’re aiming for. We want to give Brussels residents and others the opportunity to actively help to find a solution for this enormous housing problem. It’s an issue that has become really important in the last few years. Not only for the poor but also more and more for middle class people. We therefore offer a formula, everyone can participate by buying shares in Fair Ground.”
Instead, Fair Ground Brussels is now looking for Brussels residents who are cooperative – first Fair Grounder – want to become by buying a share from 25 euros. “We have made it as accessible as possible, so that anyone who wants to can participate,” says De Pauw. “Whoever can give more, the better, because we also need investments, of course. But for us it is especially important that many people can step in. Even people with a modest income. In other words: everyone who is organized wants a community that sets the way in the housing market demand. In this way you contribute to a just and sustainable city.”
Do you want to help solve the housing crisis in Brussels?
Become a Fair Grounder and click here†
Remark:
[1] The cooperative was founded by the following 14 associations, in alphabetical order and with a link to the website of each association: Angela D.† movement.net† Community Land Trust Brussels (CLTB), Township† Convivence-Living Together† creed† Les Petits Riens† l’Ilot† Lodging pour tous† Movement ouvrier chrétien (MOC), Pro Renovassistance† Solidarity Lodging† terre-en-vue† Une maison en plus†