Sue Lukes is a MigrationWork consultant on the CONSOLIDATE project, funded by the European Union. Here she reflects on the housing challenges cities in the project face and their responses.
“‘I don’t like to use the term refugee crisis. We don’t have a refugee crisis; we have a housing crisis’ Tomas Fabian, Mayor of Leipzig, said in 2016. The truth of Tomas Fabian’s statement is very clear: in many European cities there is a housing crisis that is not caused by migration, but within which migrants face particular difficulties. This poses a grave threat to migrant integration at all stages. For civic leaders the longer-term issue of how to harness the benefits of migration for their cities also demands a focus on housing1.”
I wrote this in 2021, and it remains true. Many large cities face a housing crisis, a perfect storm of rising rents, shortage of affordable housing, continuing demand to meet the city’s needs for workers. Within that, migrants and refugees demonstrably fare worse. In the UK, for example,
“Three-quarters of recent migrants to the UK live in the private rented sector (PRS). They often have low awareness of their rights and responsibilities as tenants, and are more likely to have irregular tenancies or to live in poor-condition multi-occupation properties. Such conditions can cause tensions and poor relations between migrants and settled residents2.”
And in Vienna, famous for its century long commitment to good quality affordable social housing, “people with a migration background on average pay higher prices per square metre and have less living space” and “Viennese coming from third countries or countries that have joined the EU in or after 2004 mostly live in densely built-up and densely populated neighbourhoods3.”
Yet, in the UK and in many European cities like Vienna, many migrants (over a third of Vienna’s residents) are excluded from voting in city elections and so cannot exercise that basic power to change a system that fails them. This is not only an injustice: it presents a real threat to the lives of migrants.
Awaab’s law4 came into force in the UK in November 2025. Awaab Ishaak had just had his second birthday when he died in 2020, from a respiratory condition caused by mould in his home. His parents had arrived in the UK from Sudan only 4 or 5 years before his death, and reportedly had “no doubt at all” that they were treated poorly “because we are not from the country and are less aware of how the systems in the UK work5.” Their social landlord refused to take action against the mould and damp that killed their child. Five years later, the law given his name is in force in the UK, along with a new £1 million fund that has been launched by the government to create new ways of helping tenants engage with their landlords and have more influence over decisions that affect them6.
So housing is a key social determinant of health, which is why it is a focus for the research project we are now working on in the UK (funded by UK Research and Innovation and the Arts and Humanities Research Council), led by Anglia Ruskin, Greenwich and Middlesex Universities which looks at the role community assets can play in promoting the health of refugees and migrants7.
When the EU-funded CONSOLIDATE project decided that one of its three communities of practice would design “local instruments to develop housing autonomy”, some of us joked that we would have to completely reform the housing market in the three cities involved because so many of the problems faced by refugees are simply those faced by most residents. But the peer reviews undertaken by Dortmund, Gothenburg and Vienna are a powerful methodology, and all three have developed action plans to ensure that refugees can move on from temporary and/or emergency accommodation into longer term adequate housing.
The peer review process is based on a benchmark developed from our research, which specifies the key factors needed present in each city to achieve this. The housing benchmark covers leadership, co-ordination and mobilisation, using, developing or finding the necessary powers, identifying new housing opportunities, plans/strategies/tools for engaging the private rented sector, access to information support and advice about housing, tackling discrimination, and developing options to facilitate access.
Each city hosted a visit by the others (and MigrationWork, Eurocities and the European Network of Migrant Women, the other project partners) which used the benchmark to assess what the city could do to meet those key factors. The results were then presented to key decision-makers in the city, and city officers decided which factors they wanted to prioritise in developing an action plan to make the necessary changes. Those plans are now written and waiting for European Commission approval.
Dortmund
The City of Dortmund has a well developed New Immigration Action Framework which covers housing and set its objective as
“New immigrants can find suitable, affordable, healthy housing and living environments that meet their needs in the city districts of their choice. Neighbourhoods function well and are supported. People with limited access to the housing market receive low-threshold bridging and support services.”
The peer review recommended that Dortmund’s action plan should focus on strengthening formal networks and coordination, improving anti-discrimination measures in housing, researching and accessing successful models of housing advice for refugees, and reviewing women-centred approaches in emergency shelters. Over the next 12 months the city aims to produce:
- An interactive multi-lingual map of housing services for refugees and new migrants
- Workshops and brochures about housing and how to access it in relevant languages
- A comprehensive approach to tackling discrimination in housing, working with a local NGO that will test landlords, report on housing discrimination in the city and advise how migrants and the city can tackle it
- A review of policies and procedures in emergency shelters to ensure they are appropriate for survivors of gender based violence
Gothenburg
Staff from a social services department covering one third of the city worked with the peer review team, and highlighted persistent barriers for refugees in achieving housing autonomy, including fragmented housing advice, limited outreach, and insufficient participation of migrants in shaping services intended for them. In particular, the peer review revealed a need to strengthen locally anchored support systems and ensure that target group voices are embedded in both design and delivery of services.Their action plan aims to develop and embed a locally rooted, participatory model of housing advice and support that enables refugees and other migrants in Gothenburg to move toward greater housing autonomy, while ensuring that migrant voices, especially those of women, are meaningfully included in service development and delivery. It includes:
- Building a network for housing support
- A review of housing advice methods and development of a toolkit
- Training on gender sensitivity and embedding in housing practice
Vienna
The City of Vienna is a world recognised model for social housing and also has a biennial complete statistical review of migrant integration and achievement in the city. The peer review visit drew on their customer survey which pointed to “significant barriers in accessing, understanding, and navigating housing-related services. These include lack of language-specific guidance, limited awareness of rights and procedures, and absence of targeted orientation tools”. They decided to establish a multi-lingual digital information service offering help across a range of likely problems. The plan aims to:
- Improve independent housing access and navigation for refugees and newcomers in Vienna by providing targeted, multilingual and interactive digital information, co-developed with migrant communities and integrated into existing city services.
- Develop a multilingual, web-based housing information module, built around life situations and interactive question logic, with a specific orientation towards the more vulnerable and address risks like discrimination, harassment and sexual exploitation
- Establish structured collaboration with relevant partner organisations (e.g. NGOs, housing advice centres, etc.) to co-develop and ensure up to date and needs-based information
- Include barrier-free information formats (e.g. audio/video content) where budget allows
It should be an exciting year, as they put these plans into action, and cities work with us and each other to exchange ideas, solve problems together and celebrate achievements.
CONSOLIDATE aims for more than that though. Along with research into the solutions other cities have found to these problems, the work the cities do will form the backbone of the How-To-Guide I will be writing in 2026, which will be published on Eurocities website and accessible to all who are grappling with these problems. Watch this space.
1 https://rm.coe.int/policy-brief-long-term-sustainable-housing-solutions-for-vulnerable-re/1680a8b99f
2 https://www.jrf.org.uk/housing/uk-migrants-and-the-private-rented-sector
3 https://www.wien.gv.at/english/social/integration/facts-figures/monitoring.html
5 Bancroft, Holly (15 November 2022). ‘Inquest finds toddler killed by mould exposure in ‘defining moment for housing sector’ . The Independent. Retrieved 16 November 2022. Cited in Wikipedia page
6 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/millions-of-tenants-safe-from-black-mould-through-awaabs-law
7 https://migrefhealth.co.uk/about/
