Ein dritter Wohnungssektor für Luxemburg – Emanzipation von Markt und Staat in der Wohnversorgung

The housing crisis has been preoccupying politicians and residents in Luxembourg for years. In addition to global phenomena such as the increasing commodification of housing and the financialization of the real estate market, there are additional context-specific factors that are driving the country’s property price development and thus intensifying the housing crisis. Among these factors, the rising demand for housing linked to economic growth in conjunction with the geographical size of the country creates a unique situation within Europe, which is reflected in comparatively high housing costs. The disproportionate increase in housing costs compared to household income is symptomatically leading to a housing crisis. Consequently, the responsibility of the public sector in housing provision is also growing. However, in Luxembourg, where about one-tenth of the land available for residential construction is owned by the public sector, the government has limited influence and little power to act on the housing market. The inconspicuous state presence in the housing supply in Luxembourg can be explained by a tradition of housing policy. It consists of prioritising access to individual home ownership as the primary instrument against housing crises over the construction of social housing or the regulation of the rental housing market. The tradition originated in the country’s first housing policy measure to alleviate the housing shortage caused by industrialisatio and today results in only two percent of the existing housing stock being owned by the public sector. The remaining housing can be attributed to the private housing sector. This thesis explores the agency of a third housing sector in the creation of a long-term affordable housing stock. Its definition and its necessity derive from the limitations of the two existing sectors: the private sector, in the liberal age, is increasingly becoming a site of negotiation for financially motivated actors who no longer see residential real estate as a shelter for the social practice of housing, but as an abstract economic good. In Luxembourg, the public housing sector is hardly recognised as a significant player in the housing landscape and is based on an authoritarian principle whose allocation criteria a wide range of citizens, including households from the middle shift for whom prices on the open housing market can also no longer be considered affordable. Moreover, publicly owned housing is highly dependent on the prevailing political climate and can be deregulated or transferred to the private sector through myopic political decisions. The third housing sector should provide self-organised, sustainably decommodified alternatives that understand housing as a common good. Suitable housing models can among others be housing cooperatives, where residents are both owners and tenants. Collective ownership can protect against a return of real estate to the market economy. It allows housing to be negotiated independently of the logics and mechanisms of the free housing market and forms a way for households to emancipate themselves from it through self-help. In this work, existing alternative housing models are analysed for the cornerstones of the third housing sector (sustainable decommodification, self-management, definition as common goods). The “Our new housing” study developed as part of this work informed participants about alternative housing models on the one hand and provided insights into whether there is a response to alternative forms and models of housing among the Luxembourg population on the other.