By Avery Dement, Ijeoma D. Iheanacho, Emily Levin, Meredith McNair, Aditi Nair, Lynda Nguyen, Eric Phillips
Housing is becoming more and more unaffordable, leaving many New Yorkers increasingly rent-burdened. This is most pronounced for Black and Brown low-income communities, who continue to be displaced. While New York City has a rich history of developing social housing, historic divestment and a push towards privatization has resulted in a dwindled social housing stock in disrepair.
When the United Nations declared housing a human right in 1948, they left two doors wide open: what quality of housing is everyone guaranteed, and how do you ensure those who cannot secure this housing through the private market are not stripped of this fundamental right? The following case studies address how the right to housing can be available to all. Drawing inspiration from international social housing models, we define social housing as decommodified and insulated from market forces, with long-term government involvement, either through low-cost financing or long-term government ownership, with an emphasis on tenant participation and empowerment. The solutions that follow are as varied as the governmental umbrella approach of Kenya, the financial support of Finland, and the pro-social housing land use policies of France. Their connecting thread is that the right to housing remains fundamental for people. These three countries have enacted strong policies flexible enough for their inhabitants to create their solutions that best fit the local conditions – via state-run financial institutions that support their communities, individual municipalities building their fair share of housing, or people forming their own cooperatives.
Long-term Public Financing Through MuniFin, Finland
Finland is celebrated for its sustained delivery of social housing. In the decades after World War II, as much of Europe was rebuilt, Finland drove its own recovery by developing a sustainable welfare system and a public bank specifically designed to deliver social housing. Public land ownership and long-term financing tools catered to producing and maintaining social housing continue to be the key tools that enabled the large-scale development of social housing.
The Finnish state has subsidized the production of affordable social housing for seventy-five years, and historically, 36% of annual new housing production has been state subsidized.(1) As of 2023, Finland had approximately 404,000 state-subsidized homes, which housed approximately 11% of its population.
Long-term public financing structures through state interest subsidies and supplementary guarantees are at the heart of Finland’s affordable housing development strategy. The Municipality Finance Inc (Munifin) is the single largest financier of state-subsidized loans. These loans, which represent 80% of loans acquired by housing organizations,(2) fund a significant portion of the country’s social housing production. MuniFin is entirely owned by the Finnish public sector and has a balance sheet of $53.1 billion euros.
MuniFin’s mission is to enable the Finnish welfare society and drive the green transition. This mission is not limited to social housing, but 51% of the bank’s 2025 balance sheet was lent to support the production of social housing. Finland’s affordable social housing is mainly produced by municipality-owned companies and a few pre-approved nationwide nonprofits, such as Y-Saatio. MuniFin finances affordable housing through state-guaranteed interest-subsidy loans and through long-term, municipally guaranteed loans to municipally owned housing companies. Loan maturities can extend to around forty years, with interest rates set according to market conditions.(3)
In New York City, affordable housing developers often grapple with a hodge-podge landscape of financing structures and private equity capital markets to deliver public housing. New York would benefit immensely from a public bank to scale financing resources and provide long-term, mission-driven financing. A recent report by the Community Service Society laid out plans for a “revolving loan fund,” named the NYC Revolving Housing Construction Fund (RHCF), which is essentially a city-backed pool of low-cost, long-term capital to finance housing and replace private debt.(4)
Another key tool in Finland’s delivery of social housing has been that of public land acquisition. By 2024, nearly half of state-subsidized housing projects in Finland were built on publicly owned land and the other half on leased land. This strategy lowered housing costs for renters by nearly 15%.(5) New York City could learn from this playbook. In New York, where land costs determine project viability, public housing serves only 7.8% of the city’s renters. Expanding publicly owned land or developing long-term affordable leasing options could be a powerful strategy to deliver permanently affordable housing solutions.(6)
Finland’s public housing approach has been durable and sustainable, serving its diverse housing needs and working under a cohesive ecosystem historically supported by a broad political consensus and close coordination between different levels of government.(7) Finland’s case is a good reminder that steady and mission-driven approaches – like public land ownership, municipally-backed finance, and evergreen revolving funds – can be the backbone for a city that can house everyone.
The French Social Housing Ecosystem
With over five million units, France is Europe’s leading provider of social housing. It has a robust ecosystem of policies and funding sources to incentivize new social housing development in a manner that spreads it more evenly across regions.(8) Their trademark policy, Loi Solidarité et Renouvellement Urbain (Solidarity and Urban Renewal, or SRU, Law), mandates that municipalities set aside at least 25% of all residential units (both new and existing) as social housing. Today, Paris has met that goal and aims for 40% social housing by 2035. The Socialist party-led national government passed the law in 2000 to combat segregation and reduce the concentration of poverty in 1960s/70s-era suburban housing megaprojects.(9) At the time, housing production had been stagnant for decades, and costs were rising rapidly.(10) While the SRU law was passed under a socialist government, subsequent leaders from the right, left, and center parties have upheld the policy and further strengthened it. This reflects the widespread belief in France that social housing is important and that dispersing it across regions and localities produces better outcomes for its residents.(11)
The law’s framework includes both carrots and sticks to facilitate social housing development and ensure that every municipality develops its fair share. The national government offers low-cost financing and tax breaks, as well as technical assistance for creating land use plans and developing projects.(12) Areas that fall behind their target face financial penalties (up to 5% of their operating budget) and must draft a three-year plan to catch up with housing development.(13) If they still fail to comply, they are subject to a national takeover of their building permit and land use review processes.(14)
Local governments take the lead in adding to the social housing supply, with support from other partners. In Paris, local and regional governmental entities utilize a right of first refusal to acquire properties off the private market, which they put into a land bank for social housing development.(15) According to Harvard researcher and urban planner Dr. Magda Maaoui, city staffers track property sales listings daily, pursuing even the smallest and most complicated sites for redevelopment. Most recently they have prioritized buying dilapidated old buildings and renovating them as energy-efficient social housing. While these projects are more expensive than new construction, they are considered a worthy investment because they create much-needed social housing while also preventing the failure of old buildings that private landlords cannot afford to preserve.(16) Nonprofits also develop social housing and, increasingly in recent years, acquire units built by private developers.(17)
France’s social housing system is built around a cost-rental model. Owners set rents to match the cost of operating and financing each building, which generally results in rents at 70% of market levels.(18) Social units are available to households at multiple income tiers, ranging from low- to middle-income earners.(19) Rather than tying rents to household income, the system depends on tenant-based rental assistance to ensure affordability. Rental assistance in France has broad eligibility and availability: roughly 75% of all renters in France qualify, and nearly half of all French renters receive it.(20) This model provides social housing landlords with reliable revenue to support operations and future developments. France is one of the few countries where the share of social housing is on the rise – with nearly two million social housing units added from 2001-2019.(21) According to Dr. Maaoui, “France has succeeded both in building units and rebalancing them across neighborhoods,” true to the SRU law’s goals. This growth has been predicated on a complementary set of factors: ample funding, ambitious construction targets that are strictly enforced, widespread rental assistance, a strong government role in development, and relatively high political support.(22) Yet major shortcomings persist: postwar suburban areas still concentrate poverty, wealthy areas resist full compliance, and demand far exceeds supply, with roughly two million households waiting years for placement.(23)
New York City faces many of the same challenges France did when the SRU law was passed, and we can learn from their solutions, particularly as they’re applied in greater Paris. Municipal social housing targets, set and enforced by the state government, could spread these units more equitably throughout the region. City agencies and public development authorities empowered with sufficient funding and a land bank could spearhead a new movement of government-built social housing. Lastly, expanded public rental assistance could help keep these projects and their tenants afloat in the long term.
Kenya’s National Housing Cooperative System
At the center of every solution is the kernel of the problem. In Kenya, the kernel of truth of their housing crisis is the history of racist colonial practices that created unequal access to housing. Pre-colonial Kenyans already had informal cooperative communities since time immemorial.(24) Many informal settlement communities rely on small, community‑based savings groups known as chamas. Members contribute money regularly, and depending on the group, the pooled funds may be distributed to one member in rotation or saved and lent out when needed. These groups help people – especially those earning limited daily wages – build savings and access funds for important needs such as housing. In 2000, the Kenyan government returned to this cultural cooperative root with the National Shelter Strategy, which signaled its shift from direct housing development to an approach “guided by the principles of partnership and participation by all partners in accordance with their comparative advantages.”(25) This enabling role empowers the wide breadth of Kenyan cooperatives and returns the source of solutions to the Kenyan people.
Kenya’s national cooperative system is one of the most successful strategies available in the country, achieving long-term housing affordability for low-income communities.(26) The system offers an alternative pathway towards homeownership, filling a gap “left by commercial banks’ exclusion of low to medium income earners from obtaining housing finance.”(27) At their core, the cooperatives are community-led and democratically-controlled.(28) Communities first come together to self-determine their collective goals, which typically include buying land, building housing, or upgrading informal settlements. After goals are defined, members then work with the Ministry of Cooperative Societies to establish member expectations, define equity models, draft bylaws, and elect a board. Once this infrastructure is developed, the cooperative registers with the government, and members then contribute their savings – or buy shares – to support the entity’s activities.(29) Kenya’s housing cooperatives follow the country’s tradition of group savings: communities save together and are collectively involved in loan appraisals, credit granting, and risk management.(30) Cooperatives typically provide low-interest loans to their members that are secured through member savings or shares.(31) In Mitumba, villagers formed the Bellevue Housing Cooperative Society to purchase land and establish a community trust.(32) Members raised funds through savings, provided labor and materials, and secured external financing to ultimately buy 139 land plots.(33) Members of the Naivasha Traders Housing Cooperative deployed a similar strategy, using retirement savings and external financing to develop 102 land plots.(34)
Kenya’s cooperative system benefits from centralized resources and localized management. National organizations like the National Cooperative Housing Union, the National Construction Authority, and the Ministry of Cooperative Societies provide technical assistance, while locally created Savings and Credit Cooperative Organizations provide financing for projects like building or upgrading homes. These resources are critical to the implementation and sustainability of cooperatives,(35) and they help enhance member engagement and housing affordability.(36) New York City already has a wide network of organizations that support low-to-moderate income (LMI) housing cooperatives. Kenya’s system models how New York City can better coordinate and invest in organizations to help spur cooperative formation and expand services available to cooperative members.
Cooperatives’ reliance on economies of scale reduces costs. Kenya’s high construction cost is partly attributed to its dependency on imported equipment.(37) Housing cooperatives take advantage of their large size to purchase materials and labor in bulk, which in turn reduces costs.(38) New York City could benefit from a similar strategy. Centralized bulk procurement of materials and labor could help reduce costs and facilitate partnerships with building construction trades to develop scaled, labor-led social housing.
Importantly, not all housing developed through this model is affordable and accessible to all. Data shows more older members tend to be deed title holders compared to younger members.(39) This may be because it typically takes a member about seven to nine years to accumulate enough savings to acquire housing through the cooperative system.(40) Additionally, members with higher levels of education, as well as those with higher and stable incomes, tend to benefit more than others, as they can better utilize their funds and/or credits to acquire more housing.(41)
Big Swings for New York City
Social housing can succeed as a viable path forward from a broken system of housing in New York City if we reinvest, re-engage, and reimagine housing as a public good. We need to fund the preservation of existing housing stock to address urgent operations and maintenance needs while also increasing the portfolio and supply. We also need to level the playing field to enable more ownership transfers from bad landlords to tenants and community-based organizations
Finland, France, and Kenya model robust government financing structures, equitable distribution of social housing, and community-driven participatory models as defining features of effective social housing systems that can all be applied to New York City, with the following critical actions:
- Provide public financing for social housing with a publicly supported revolving fund that provides long-term financing capital for social housing.
- Acquire and rehabilitate distressed housing units for equitable distribution through social housing.
- Amplify community action by enabling mechanisms for resident choice and tenant capacity building, including pathways to ownership via cooperative models. Centralized government support of cooperatives formed by community-led organizations focused on local needs and solutions empowers citizens to rise to the task of participating in solving the housing crisis that impacts them.
Fellows
Avery Dement
Ijeoma D. Iheanacho
Emily Levin
Meredith McNair
Aditi Nair
Lynda Nguyen
Eric Phillips
Sources:
(1)European Association fo Public Bank. (2022, November 18). ”MuniFin/Finnish system for affordable social housing supports social mixing and brings down homelessness.” https://eapb.eu/media-corner/news/722:finnish-system-for-affordable-social-housing-supports-social-mixing-and-brings-down-homelessness.html#:~:text=MuniFin%20/%20Finnish%20system%20for%20affordable,homelessness%20within%20two%20government%20terms.
(2) Ibid.
(3)MuniFin. (2025, September 18.) The Finnish system of affordable social housing supports social participation, equality, and manageable living costs. https://www.kuntarahoitus.fi/en/news/affordable-social-housing-in-finland
(4)Thompson, I. (2025, October). Can New York City Build Again? A Bluepring for a New Era of Social Housing. https://www.cssny.org/publications/entry/can-new-york-build-again-a-blueprint-for-a-new-era-of-social-housing?mc_cid=44ed18bd36&mc_eid=UNIQID
(5)Finnish Affordable Housing Companies’ Federation – KOVA. (2025, May.) Review of Affordable Housing in Finland. https://www.kovary.fi/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Review-of-Affordable-Housing-in-Finland-2025_taitettu.pdf
(6)Furman Center. NYCHA’s Public Land. https://furmancenter.org/files/publications/302.6_NYCHAs_Public_Land_-_Final.pdf
(7) Shinn, M. and Jill Khadduri. (2020, March). How Finland Ended Homelessness. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/cityscpe/vol22num2/ch4.pdf
(8) Paavo Monkkonen, “Social Housing in France: Lessons for California and Beyond,” October 24, 2025, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8dk672n2.
(9)Yonah Freemark, “Lessons from France for creating inclusionary housing by mandating citywide affordability,” Urban Institute, September 14, 2021, https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/lessons-france-creating-inclusionary-housing-mandating-citywide-affordability
(10)Alan Durning, “Yes, Other Places Do Housing Better, Case 3: Paris,” Sightline Institute, October 15, 2025, https://www.sightline.org/2021/07/26/yes-other-places-do-housing-better-case-3-paris/.
(11) Yonah Freemark, interview by authors, Virtual, November 5, 2025.
(12)Magda Maaoui, “The SRU Law, Twenty Years Later: Evaluating the Legacy of France’s Most Important Social Housing Program,” Housing Studies 38, no. 8 (August 2, 2021): 1392–1416, https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2021.1941790.
(13) Ibid.
(14) Monkkonen, “Social Housing in France: Lessons for California and Beyond.”
(15) Magda Maaoui, interview by authors, Virtual, January 6, 2026.
(16) Ibid.
(17)Monkkonen, “Social Housing in France: Lessons for California and Beyond.”
(18) Ibid.
(19)Yonah Freemark, “Lessons from France for creating inclusionary housing by mandating citywide affordability.”
(20)Monkkonen, “Social Housing in France: Lessons for California and Beyond.”
(21)Magda Maaoui, “Social Contract: Parisian Social Housing,” The Architectural Review, June 30, 2022, https://www.architectural-review.com/buildings/housing/social-contract-parisian-social-housing.
(22) Yonah Freemark, “Mandating Access to Affordable Housing, City by City: Is France’s Fair-Share SRU Law a Model for U.S. Metropolitan Areas?” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, September 2021,https://yonahfreemark.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Freemark-SRU-Law-2021.pdf; Yonah Freemark, “Lessons from France for creating inclusionary housing by mandating citywide affordability.”; Thomas Fuller, “How Does Paris Stay Paris? By Pouring Billions Into Public Housing,” The New York Times, March 17, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/realestate/paris-france-housing-costs.html; Durning, “Yes, Other Places Do Housing Better, Case 3: Paris.”
(23)Liliane Bonnal, Rachid Boumahdi & Pascal Favard, Determinants of Waiting Time for Social Housing, 63 Revue Économique 721 (2012),https://doi.org/10.3917/reco.634.0721; Yonah Freemark, interview by authors, Virtual, November 5, 2025; Magda Maaoui, interview by authors, Virtual, January 6, 2026.
(24) Baitu, Juvenalis, and United Nations Human Settlements Programme. 2010. The Organisation, Management and Finance of Housing Cooperatives in Kenya. The Global Urban Econocommunitiesmic Dialogue Series. United Nations Habitat.https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/download-manager-files/Organisation%2C%20Management%20and%20Evaluation%20of%20Housing%20Cooperatives%20in%20Kenya.pdf.
(25) Ibid.
(26)Kamau, Francis K. 2014. Effect of Home Ownership Models on Rate of Owning Homes Among Low-Income Households in Nairobi County, Kenya. KCA University.http://41.89.49.13:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/1199/Kamau-Effect%20Of%20Home%20Ownership%20Models%20On%20Rate%20Of%20Owning%20Homes%20Among%20Low%20Income%20Households%20In%20Nairobi%20County%2c%20Kenya.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y; Onduko, Enock M, Julius K Ithai, and Halldess N Munene. 2025. “Influence of Cooperative Housing Finance on Housing Affordability in Nairobi City County, Kenya.” The Journal of African Interdisciplinary Studies 9 (2): 5–29.https://kenyasocialscienceforum.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/8pdf-onduko-et-al-influence-of-cooperative-housing-finance-on-housing-affordability-in-nairobi-city-county-kenya-1.pdf.
(27) ibid,
(28) Baitu, Juvenalis, and United Nations Human Settlements Programme. 2010. The Organisation, Management and Finance of Housing Cooperatives in Kenya. The Global Urban Economic Dialogue Series. United Nations Habitat.https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/download-manager-files/Organisation%2C%20Management%20and%20Evaluation%20of%20Housing%20Cooperatives%20in%20Kenya.pdf.
(29)Onduko, Enock M, Julius K Ithai, and Halldess N Munene. 2025. “Influence of Cooperative Housing Finance on Housing Affordability in Nairobi City County, Kenya.” The Journal of African Interdisciplinary Studies 9 (2): 5–29.https://kenyasocialscienceforum.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/8pdf-onduko-et-al-influence-of-cooperative-housing-finance-on-housing-affordability-in-nairobi-city-county-kenya-1.pdf.
(30)Houston, Anthea. 2010. Housing Support Services For Housing Microfinance Lending in East and Southern Africa: A Case Study of The National Cooperative Housing Union (NACHU). FinMark Trust and Rooftops Canada.https://sportsclubbies.co.za/cahf/app/uploads/NACHU-case-study1.pdf.
(31)IBID; Onduko, Enock M, Julius K Ithai, and Halldess N Munene. 2025. “Influence of Cooperative Housing Finance on Housing Affordability in Nairobi City County, Kenya.” The Journal of African Interdisciplinary Studies 9 (2): 5–29.https://kenyasocialscienceforum.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/8pdf-onduko-et-al-influence-of-cooperative-housing-finance-on-housing-affordability-in-nairobi-city-county-kenya-1.pdf.
(32)Baitu, Juvenalis, and United Nations Human Settlements Programme. 2010. The Organisation, Management and Finance of Housing Cooperatives in Kenya. The Global Urban Economic Dialogue Series. United Nations Habitat.https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/download-manager-files/Organisation%2C%20Management%20and%20Evaluation%20of%20Housing%20Cooperatives%20in%20Kenya.pdf.
(33) ibid.
(34) Ibid.
(35)Houston, Anthea. 2010. Housing Support Services For Housing Microfinance Lending in East and Southern Africa: A Case Study of The National Cooperative Housing Union (NACHU). FinMark Trust and Rooftops Canada.https://sportsclubbies.co.za/cahf/app/uploads/NACHU-case-study1.pdf.
(36)Onduko, Enock M, Jones Kaleshu, and Benson Ndiege. 2021. “Housing Co-Operatives Member Participation and Housing Affordability in Nairobi County, Kenya.” The African Journal of Co-Operative Development and Technology 6 (2): 9–27.https://repository.cuk.ac.ke/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/699/Housing%20Co-operatives%20Member%20Participation%20and%20Housing%20Affordability.pdf?sequence=equipment1&isAllowed=y.
(37)Kimani, Sammy Kanjah, and Janesther Karugu. 2020. “Strategic Approaches and Delivery of Affordable Housing in Nairobi City County, Kenya.” International Journal of Business Management, Entrepreneurship and Innovation 2 (1): 17–35.https://doi.org/10.35942/jbmed.v2i1.97.
(38) Kamau, Francis K. 2014. Effect of Home Ownership Models on Rate of Owning Homes Among Low-Income Households in Nairobi County, Kenya. KCA University.http://41.89.49.13:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/1199/Kamau-Effect%20Of%20Home%20Ownership%20Models%20On%20Rate%20Of%20Owning%20Homes%20Among%20Low%20Income%20Households%20In%20Nairobi%20County%2c%20Kenya.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y;Onduko, Enock M, Julius K Ithai, and Halldess N Munene. 2025. “Influence of Cooperative Housing Finance on Housing Affordability in Nairobi City County, Kenya.” The Journal of African Interdisciplinary Studies 9 (2): 5–29.https://kenyasocialscienceforum.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/8pdf-onduko-et-al-influence-of-cooperative-housing-finance-on-housing-affordability-in-nairobi-city-county-kenya-1.pdf.
(39-41) Ibid