How to use mapping in advocating for more affordability and better protection of tenants? This question was at the center of ISHF – International Social Housing Festival 2023 side event ‘Mobilizing alternatives by and for people through mapping and maps’, which was prepared by participants of project Critical Mapping for Municipalist Mobilization.’ Researchers and activists from #Belgrade, #Berlin and #Barcelona introduced the housing challenge in their cities and how they try to change the status-quo by using interactive maps.
Jovanna Timotijevic ntroduced the case of Belgrade, which moved from a collective and public approach to housing to an individual and market driven one by a liberal oriented public administration. Her group developed a tool to be used by citizens which shows whether apartments suit them spacewise and pricewise. An overview map shows how badly the apartments suit the needs and the financial situation of tenants.
Julian Zwicker from Berlin described the increasing rent levels in his city. His group advocated for private, market driven parties to sell their stock to non-profit actors. A tool to be used by citizens maps the desire to change landlord by the tenants.
Finally Irene Escorihuela Blasco and Lorenzo Vidal introduced the situation in Barcelona. Less than 2% of total stock is public housing. Resulting in an average rent value of 1077 euro, while the minimum wage is 1080 euro. This makes that between 2012 and 2021 22.130 households were evicted, on average 10 per day. The group developed a tool to map evictions in the city, the reason for evictions and details about the landlord that is evicting.
Mapping, it turns out is a very strong tool to advocate the status quo in cities, to put the right to housing back on the agenda. As one of the speakers noted ‘an image says more than a thousand words’.
Check out the project website for more information.
(this article is part of a series of blog articles for a live blog website, in collaboration with Housing Europe)
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