Tugdual LE LAY

Tugdual Le Lay, municipal and metropolitan councillor in Guingamp, Brittany and lecturer at SciencesPo Paris and Sciences Po Rennes

Housing goes beyond building houses. It shapes where and how we live, work, raise our children, grow old – and which territories thrive or will be abandoned. It is about people. It is about dignity and trust. Housing is about hope: the promise that wherever you live, whoever you are, you are welcome in Europe and have a right to stay. 

Decades. Billions. This is what it took to build one of the EU’s greatest achievements: the freedom to move. But what freedom is this, when staying is no longer possible? What freedom when forced to move? A right to stay starts with a place to stay. One you call home. Someplace you can own, rent or simply afford. A place to build a life. That is why it is more than simply building houses. Housing is about life.

Housing shapes land and opportunities. Social housing creates communities and fulfils a promise: where you live and your opportunities should not necessarily depend on the size of your bank account. Meeting different people, stories and opinions. Learning from past generations. Access to health, jobs, culture, education or leisure. Housing means opportunities. Social housing prevents housing from being reserved for those who can afford it elsewhere. Housing makes staying possible. Services make it viable. Public services make it sustainable. 

Housing not only shapes places and communities. It determines which territories can retain, welcome or simply provide for their people. Access to a school, a hospital or a job – to name but a few – makes it possible to stay. Europe’s reindustrialisation goes beyond protecting know-how or margins on a global market. Fighting for the right to keep a hospital in Guingamp, a town of 7,000 inhabitants in rural Brittany, goes beyond fighting for a ‘selfish privilege’ in healthcare. A home means little if life outside it is gone. Nearly two thirds of Europeans live in towns, suburbs or rural areas. One in five live in rural regions according to Eurostat. Beyond Guingamp, the right to stay is a European challenge. 

Jobs and services shape territories. Public services create local jobs and fulfil the promise that no one goes without care, education or employment. Everyone has a right to a fair chance. There is no public service without a public. Without people to serve. Without common rules. Without trust. Without solidarity. 

There is no housing without social housing. Nor is there housing without jobs, services and public services. And ‘We don’t have the means’ simply can no longer be an excuse in the EU, the world’s leading commercial powerhouse and one of the world’s three largest economies. Collectively, we have more means than ever. The question is how we choose to use them. Where we invest. What we value. Cohesion and solidarity are not a matter of wealth. They are about choice. What happens when, beyond our ideals, citizens face daily inequalities in access to services, economic disparities and territorial divides? Our social contract is shaken. Why should some pay taxes for services they no longer have? Distrust grows. Anger can follow. Those who still care might speak out. Others silently withdraw into a sense of abandonment, resentment and often, into abstention. 

Housing cannot answer all our problems. Yet, housing provides visible results, jobs, access to services and conditions for their existence. Housing paves the way to consent and trust. It is about hope in our democracy’s ability to deliver. To provide concrete, tangible solutions. 

We know what to do. We have solutions.

With the bail réel solidaire’, housing becomes available in Breton towns hit by surging housing prices. The formula is simple: you own your home – but you only buy the walls. At the same time, the community protects the land: you can only rent it for a fraction of the private market’s price tag. When conventional ownership becomes unaffordable, change the convention. Separate land ownership from home ownership. Apply common rules: make land a common good, take land and housing out of the speculative equation. Set priorities so people can have the freedom to stay.

There are many such solutions. Europe is the right level to help local solutions scale. Not to replace them but to make them replicable. A housing act does not require more rules. It requires better rules. Common rules. It requires bridging gaps, innovation, financing and a common approach. It requires local ecosystems. More loops where housing, jobs, services and taxes fuel one another. It requires knowing what we want without setting our challenges against one another. It requires owning our choices. 

The ecological transition is a necessity. So is zero net land take. So is affordable housing. Protecting land and living where we choose Europe gave us the freedom to move – without the right to stay are not incompatible. Politics begins where we refuse to sacrifice one necessity to another. Ultimately, it is about trust. Trust in local solutions. It is about delivering. This is where Europe’s sovereignty lies. Europe’s housing policy should not be about houses. It should be about choosing where to build our lives. It is about living with dignity, including in small towns and rural regions. More broadly, it is about giving Europeans the means to choose and defend our collective preferences in this world. We talk in decades we do not have, and billions we will have to find. It is about regaining trust in who we are and what we collectively stand for. 

Housing is much more than building houses. Housing can be a European answer to bring hope back into our daily lives. And into our European political project. The next European promise is to ensure moving remains a choice. Let’s make it clear: Guingamp is my hometown, Brittany is my region and Europe is where I belong. Like many Bretons, I chose to build my life in a small town. I want the freedom to move – and the right to stay.

Photo credits: Shutterstock/David Hughes