Many participants participated in the HLM congress that was held from September 24 to 26 in Montpellier, a few days after the appointment of the Barnier government. And the message transmitted by the social housing actors was unanimous: their situation is bad, the State has not acted to satisfy their needs and has not known how to respond to the real estate crisis; but they are more convinced than ever of their role and eager to move forward with the new Minister of Housing, Valérie Létard, who visited the site. It is therefore a “optimism of the will” said, in her opening speech, Emmanuelle Cosse, president of the Union of Social Housing (USH), which brings together 559 HLM organizations and organizes this congress every year.
This optimism will not be too much: “The context has deteriorated further, and unfortunately significantly, since our congress last year in Nantes”summed up Bruno Arcadipane, president of Action Logement, a heavyweight in the sector. “All the words, all the formulas were used to sound the alarm. Alerts that, in reality, did not provoke the energetic measures expected from the highest summit of the State. And today… nothing is going well. And our fellow citizens tell us this too, even at the polls.”he denounced.
The world of HLM measures the expectations it arouses, while the real estate crisis, in the last two years, has reinforced the housing crisis. With access to property almost blocked due to rising interest rates and with fewer rentals becoming less affordable in the private sector, applications for social housing reached a new record in mid-2024, at 2.7 million. Of them, 1.8 million come from households that do not yet live in HLM, a figure never reached in the past.
Very busy organizations
It is increasingly difficult for social landlords to respond to this demand: they even hope to end the year with fewer allocations than the 385,000 in 2020, the year of Covid-19, Emmanuelle Cosse, former Minister (ecologist) of Housing, told USH. . . On the one hand, because with the crisis fewer tenants leave social housing. And, on the other hand, because HLM organizations create fewer homes.
The gap between need and supply promises to grow: “The approvals [autorisations] The production of social housing in 2024 risks being below 82,000 in 2023”announces Marianne Louis, CEO of USH. Once again, the crisis weighs: the Livret A rate, which determines the rate of very long-term loans for social housing, has increased to 3%, although the government has moderated its increase. The high cost of land, the increase in construction costs and the difficulties faced by real estate developers also influence: More than half of social housing is now created within mixed programs, of which free-price housing sells less due to rising debt rates.
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