One day after (CSV) announced that his government’s housing action plan was about to drop, Improof--a think tank that is an initiative of the Chamber of Employees (CSL)--published a study on households renting (or applying to rent) affordable housing in Luxembourg.
The survey, published on 24 January, uses data from three bodies: the Housing Fund (Fonds du logement or FDL); the National low-cost housing society (Société nationale des habitations à bon marché or SNHBM); and the Foundation for access to housing (Fondation pour l’accès au logement or FAL). The result is a profile (or several profiles) of the tenant or future tenant.
Varying data sets
Improof notes that, for people already in social (i.e., affordable) housing, the breakdown between men and women varies significantly across the data sets: FAL and FDL estimate that 45% of the tenants are male, while the SNHBM has it at over 78%.
The disparities continue with regards to age, with the SNHBM and FDL reporting (respectively) that occupants are 50.5 and 56.1 years old on average, but FAL saying 42.9. The discrepancy is significant, especially considering that the average renting age on the private market is 46.2--older or younger than for affordable housing, depending on whose data you look at.
Improof also points out that the 70.3% of its tenants in the SNHBM study live in the centre of the country, while the FDL has a higher concentration in the south (51%) and the FAL looks, comparatively, nationwide.
High numbers of single-parent and large families
It is perhaps no surprise that single-parent families are three to five times more numerous in social housing than in the private market. They account for 22.3% of the FDL’s applications, 27.1% of the FAL’s and 34.5% of the SNHBM’s--but comprise only some 6.5% of private tenants.
Large families (i.e., couples with at least two children) are also proportionally more numerous, the report finds, accounting for between 17.2% and 27.5% of applications, depending on the organisation, while comprising 10.5% of private tenants.
Similarly, on average, social tenant households contain more people. The FAL found that households of five or more people account for more than a third of cases (34.6%). This compares with just 3.4% of private tenants.
In terms of income, social tenants are--again unsurprisingly--more concentrated at the lower end of the income scale, whereas private tenants show a much more spread-out curve, the think tank finds.
As for the affordability ratio (i.e., the ratio between the sum of housing-related expenditure and income), it does not exceed 27% on average for households occupying social housing, compared with, on the private market, 37.3% in 2019.
Waiting times
As evidence of the sharp rise in demand, just over 5,500 households--or more than 15,400 individuals--are currently on the waiting list to obtain social housing from the FDL, an increase of more than 40% compared to 2021. (These figures, reported by Improof, date from March 2023.) On average, the waiting time on this list is 2.9 years, says the report.
These households on the waiting list have a monthly income of €1,695 on average, and almost four in ten spend over 30% of their income on rent (at the time of their application).
Tensions over housing have been high--the construction sector on 24 January--and Frieden has indicated that a detailed list of measures are forthcoming. Among them are tax incentives for people investing in property they intend to rent out, as well as support for people wanting to buy or rent houses. The prime minister specified that measures would be aimed to low-income individuals.
For context: Luxembourg has about 250,000 resident households, 31% of which were being rented in 2019 (the latest figures available). This proportion has remained fairly stable since 2004 (27%).
This article in Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano.