Housing Crisis: Turning an Emergency into an Opportunity

From Copenhagen to Budapest; from Lisbon to Amsterdam, low- and middle-income people struggle to find decent and affordable places to live.

Housing prices in the EU increased by 64.9% between 2015 and 2025.

In 2024, around 8–10% of EU residents were living in households spending more than 40% of their disposable income on housing.

Around 895,000 people experience homelessness every night in Europe. Roughly 47 million people were unable to keep their home adequately warm in 2024.

More than 47.5 million homes are vacant across the EU.

Addressing both the housing crisis and energy poverty is possible! Why don’t we renovate these already existing but abandoned buildings, before constructing new ones, which demand significant energy, raw materials, and land? That’s what the EUKI project Transforming Invisible Buildings strives to do by applying sufficiency principles to make more energy efficient apartments available for all.

Are you interested? Then, join us at the New European Bauhaus from 9 to 12 June at the Art & History Museum and Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels, Belgium.

Play with us and share your local housing story!

The Energy Cities and Habitat for Humanity International teams will welcome you and be happy to hear from you! Stop at the Transforming Invisible Buildings stand for an interactive game: share ideas, local examples and solutions to address the housing emergency and let us know you housing story!

Additionally, you will have the opportunity to learn about how the project will empower One-Stop-Shop (OSS) services in Zagreb (Croatia), Ljubljana (Slovenia), and Athens (Greece) by transforming them into urban transformation hubs capable of addressing both efficiency and spatial planning.

A European movement committed to beauty, inclusion and sustainability

The New European Bauhaus brings citizens, experts, businesses, and institutions together to reimagine sustainable living in Europe and beyond. In addition to creating a platform for experimentation and connection, this European Commission initiative supports positive change by providing access to EU funding for beautiful, sustainable, and inclusive projects.

The 2026 edition of the NEB Festival will focus on democratic engagement and on affordable housing. Communities, creators and changemakers will come together to understand people’s needs and aspirations and showcase projects that successfully reflect them.

The event is open to everyone free of charge. Don’t miss this opportunity. Discover the programme here!