Housing Cost Affordability in social housing interventions: analysis of the operating variables impact on the housing costs of a temporary dwelling in Turin

Even though if social housing is characterised by the wide diversity of national housing situations, conceptions and policies across member states it is possible recognize a relative convergence in the defining elements of social housing across European Union (EU) member states, namely: i) the existence of specific missions of general interest; ii) the objective to increase supply of affordable housing through the construction, management, purchase, and letting of social housing; and iii) the definition of target groups (either in socio-economic terms or in relation to other types of vulnerability) (Czischke and Pittini, 2007). Moreover it is very difficult to agree on ameaningful common definition of social housing. However, there seems to be consensus on that social housing is housing for those whose needs are not met by the open market and where there are rules for allocating housing to benefit households . In such a context the experience carried out by the Programma Housing della Compagnia di San Paolo, in close collaboration with the Ufficio Pio since 2009, and in partnership with other external parties has promoted two experimental projects aimed at building two Temporary Dwellings in Turin. Temporary Dwellings can be defined as structures intended for subjects in a situation of housing vulnerability or who need transitory housing solutions; they are characterised by the temporariness of the guests' stay, by limited rent costs and by the opportunity, for people living there, of enjoying common services and spaces. These buildings may represent one possible response to the growing housing needs expressed by a segment of the population that is placed in the so-called “grey zone” of income, that is a range that does not allow access to programs of public housing, but at the same time it is not sufficient to cover the costs of the rent that characterise the market rent. The paper discusses the results emerging from a research carried out since 2010 by SiTI on a social housing intervention currently in progress. The aim of the research relays in defining a model useful to control the building integrated sustainability, especially regarding some operating variables such as plants typology, building technologies or inhabitants income burdens, all affecting housing cost components. The emerging results evidence that it is effectively possible to balance the housing costs components (rent rates and operating expenses) with the energetic performances of the building, reaching up to -60% of energetic expenses and up to -10% on the housing cost variables as a whole. The results highlight the importance of defining flexible scenarios also for the Temporary Dwellings manager. The value of the analysis lies in showing how to take into account architecture, plants and relative impacts on housing costs, in order to define the best mix of technical and operating inputs, to foresee and adjust the economic and social variables themselves, also in relation to a specific urban location and a peculiar mixitè of inhabitants.