I visited the biggest affordable housing conference in France. Here’s what I saw and learned.
Some good and bad
A few weeks ago, I attended France’s largest affordable housing conference, the CongrèsHLM 2025 (September 23-25), in Paris. The annual event is organized by l’Union Sociale pour l’Habitat (USH), a members’ association of affordable housing providers in France, and featured thousands of attendees from all parts of the housing industry. While the goal was initially to practice my language skills, I learned a lot about French affordable housing – what the French call social housing -- that I thought I would share here. French social housing is publicly subsidized and rent restricted and is sometimes referred to with the acronym HLM, which stands for “habitations à loyer modéré” (“housing with moderated rents” in English). This is roughly the equivalent to what we would call capital A “Affordable housing” in the US, but differs greatly in its ownership, management, and financing. For this post, I’ll first highlight some notable differences of French social housing and then reveal some of my biggest takeaways from the conference.
French Social Housing – Some Important Differences with the US
Size – A larger portion of the housing market than US affordable housing
The first notable difference is the amount of social housing in France. Although it only has about 1/5 the population of the US, France has about the same total amount of publicly subsidized housing (4.8M units). This means that a much larger percentage – about 16% of all households compared to about 6% in the US -- live in social housing. Annual production is also higher in France, with over 81,000 new social housing units built last year, around 1/3 of the total national housing production.1
In the popular imagination, many people associate French social housing with “grands ensembles”, or large public housing projects built in isolated French suburbs detached from public services. While many grands ensembles still exist, modern French social housing development has shifted focus to higher-quality design in buildings closer to public services in infill locations. The images below show two examples of this evolution.
Incomes served – A broader range of incomes than US affordable housing
French social housing restricts incomes and rents, which are about 28% lower than the private market.2 Like the US, income and rent limits are set by project location, household size, and different types of subsidies that target specific income categories. But unlike the US, social housing is available to a much broader segment of the French population. About 72% of the French population qualifies for some type of social housing.3 Although the social housing population is generally lower income, it is more mixed income than in the US. Only a little over 1/3 of social housing residents live below 60% of the median income compared to the vast majority of affordable housing residents in the US.4
Financing – French developers have unique financial levers not available in the US
French social housing has many financing tools not available to US developers. The most important source of social housing funding are low-interest loans from the Caisse des Dépôts (CDC). This is a state-controlled financial institution that manages savings from French citizens and invests them in projects serving the public interest. Loans from the CDC have interest rates low enough that most of the capital stack for new social housing projects is composed of debt. Contrast this with the typical capital stack of a LIHTC project in the US, which relies much more heavily on investor equity from tax credits. Below is a comparison between the average French capital stack and a sample affordable project from Arlington, Virginia.
French projects also benefit from some unique tax advantages that help lower costs, such as limited property taxes and lower tax rates (value-added tax) on products used to build social housing. France also gives rental assistance directly to people who qualify (similar to rental vouchers in the US). In total, France spends a larger percentage of its GDP on housing-related aid – about 1.5%5 of its GDP compared to well under 0.5% for the US.
Ownership & management – Less fragmented with more national oversight
French social housing is owned and managed by about 550 separate organizations, most of which own tens of thousands of units each. Social housing owners comes in a few different flavors: local public housing authorities, non-profit organizations, or social housing cooperatives. The national government sets the rules and carefully monitors these organizations, even passing a law in 2018 that forced many of the smallest owners to merge for the sake of efficiency. The national budget sets annual objectives for production and renovation.
The government doesn’t shy away from its role as enforcer. A 2013 law known as the SRU law mandates that localities plan for 25% of their housing stock to be affordable to low-income households or face fines. This contrasts starkly to the US, where affordable housing is mostly owned and managed by thousands of different private landlords with little day-to-day involvement from higher levels of government.
Takeaways from the Conference
1. A mature and professionalized industry
The size and scale of the conference was striking. Thousands of attendees buzzed about a conference center with at least five different stages hosting simultaneous panels. Far from a stuffy policy conference, the event had lots of energy and showcased innovation. It featured a dedicated startup space and fancy exhibitions from artificial intelligence companies, private contractors, modular housing providers, and more. Many of the exhibitors featured their own independent programming, such as live podcasts.
I was also struck by how coordinated everything felt. Perhaps this is because Union Social pour l’Habitat (USH) presents a single national association that combines advocacy, research, and member services. This is much more centralized than the US, where housing associations are fragmented functionally and geographically.
USH has an incredible amount of resources available to French housing orgs. The conference featured an on-site library with all the latest information on housing demographics, financing sources, policy changes, and comprehensive data on France’s housing stock. I pulled a lot from these sources to write this post. USH is even debuting a new website called LAB Habitat, a database of more than 500 development case studies where users can pull information about building attributes, project costs, and financing.
The conference also had a gravitas I’ve rarely seen at US affordable housing conferences, probably because of the greater relative size of the social housing sector in France. For example, I was surprised to see former French president François Hollande presenting an award at one session for the best housing research paper.
2. Worsening housing affordability
Conference speakers consistently cited evidence of worsening housing affordability. The average French household now spends nearly 29% of their income on housing, the highest level in 40 years. Meanwhile, the housing price to income ratio has nearly doubled in the last 20 years. This is putting pressure on the social housing providers.
In her opening remarks, USH president Emmanuelle Cosse lamented the record-high 2.9 million requests for social housing in 2024, over 2 million of which were left on waiting lists. In language eerily similar to discussions about the American housing crisis, she cited the lack of affordable housing as a major drain on French companies’ ability to recruit. Later in the conference, a presentation from the OECD noted that France has among the highest rates of homelessness in the developed world (chart above).
And although France has historically had higher rates of housing production than anglophone countries, it has declined dramatically in recent years. 2024 saw a 25-year low in construction starts, and social housing starts have declined nearly 25% since pre-pandemic levels.6 This may be due in part to rising development costs, which, as one panelist noted, have increased nearly 30% since 2018.
3. Calls for more national leadership
In response to these growing affordability concerns, speakers united behind a call for more national leadership. USH President Emmanuelle Cosse noted that this is the first ever congress without attendance by the minister of housing. At the time of the conference, the government had no minister in place (one has since been appointed) after the previous government was ousted by a vote of no confidence in early September. The political situation continues to worsen as a divided Parliament struggles to agree on a 2026 budget. Amidst this political crisis, Madame Cosse had strong words for national leaders and their lack of attention on housing:
“J’ai écouté avec attention le nouveau premier minister Sébastien Lecornu parler de rupture lors de la passation de pouvoir. Cette rupture, elle doit passer par la fin du désintérêt pour notre secteur et cela doit se traduire dans la prochaine loi de finance.
English: I recently heard the new Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu talk about the need for a “breakage” from the past in his new government. But this breakage from the past can only happen by putting an end to the [government’s] disinterest for our [social housing] industry and must show up in the next proposed budget.”
Among conference-goers top priorities is undoing the “réduction de loyer de solidarité (RLS)”, a forced reduction in rents and rental assistance from the national government. This has resulted in a huge decline in revenue for social housing organizations, which they depend on to invest in new projects. In her closing remarks, Madame Cosse called for more resources to housing in the national budget, stating that for every euro invested in housing, the government receives 2.5 euros back in tax receipts.
4. Prioritizing renovations
French social housers renovate even more housing than they build. In 2024, there were over 113,000 HLM renovations, mainly targeted at improving energy efficiency.7 This focus on renovations is due partly to the old age of the housing stock. Most French social housing was built prior to 1990 in the decades after World War II. Compared to the US, this is a similar age to public housing, but is older than the rest of the affordable housing stock, which was mainly built after the introduction of LIHTC in the late 80s.
The focus on renovations is also due to national energy policies. France’s 2021 Climate and Resilience Law made it mandatory for all rental properties to receive an energy consumption certification (known as a DPE). This law also mandates that the worst-performing properties improve their energy performance within the next 10 years or be banned from the rental market.
I counted at least 10 conference sessions dedicated to energy and climate adaptation with tips on how owners could achieve these ambitious targets. Despite their best efforts to adapt to national climate laws, many developers admitted they can’t keep up with the aggressive regulations without further financial assistance from the government.
5. Importance of densification in the national housing strategy
In the American urbanist imagination, France is a world leader, epitomizing the European ideal of dense, walkable living. And while that’s true to some extent, that popular image hides an underlying cultural struggle to densify as well as the intentional work by French housers to normalize density. Although it might not be as strong as in the US, France also has a cultural preference for single-family homes, which house 55% of the population. There is also lots of NIMBYism at the local level that adds pressure to reject new housing permits.
But in contrast to the US, where density is often a feared word, French housers talk freely about the need to densify to meet their housing goals. The conference sessions focused on how, not if, to add more housing in already-existing communities. Like with energy policy, this is also partly in response to government regulation. In an effort to limit sprawl, the French government has established a goal known as zéro artificialization nette (ZAN) that seeks to eliminate the net loss of undeveloped land to new development by 2050. This means that local zoning plans will either have to plan for future development on already-developed sites or compensate for sprawl some other way.
Conference sessions stressed important benefits of density, such as preserving natural spaces on the periphery of urban areas. One beautiful example project (photos below) from Silène Habitat showed 14 new social housing units that replaced a single-family home. The project was designed with separate entrances and private outdoor spaces for each new unit to mitigate the impacts of close-quarter living.
Another growing strategy for French social housing developers is “surélévations”, adding vertical additions on top of existing buildings. One neat exhibition at the conference was from Upfactor, a company that helps owners and cities across France identify buildings that are structurally capable and have zoned capacity to add additional stories.
6. Recognizing the need for national guardrails to local zoning
Although France has locally controlled zoning, I sensed a strong and growing recognition of the need for national oversight at the conference. Panelists acknowledged that the French government can and should step in when localities fail to zone for a basic standard of affordable housing. One panel discussion featured five different mayors from across the country discussing tradeoffs between local and national control.
Charlotte Libert, mayor of Vincennes, expressed her support for local control over land use decisions to protect every city’s unique history. Others, such as Strasbourg Mayor Jeanne Barseghian, praised the creation of regional zoning plans (known as PLU intercommunal, or PLUi) that provide better coordination between cities within the same metropolitan area. Amandine Demore, mayor of Échirolles, a suburb of Grenoble, expressed frustration with neighboring communities that don’t build enough affordable housing and showed support for the national SRU law mandating that each community zone for affordable housing. Natalie Appéré, the mayor of Rennes, agreed with this, stressing the importance of national oversight of local plans to ensure national housing objectives are met. This conversation struck me as a much more productive dialogue than we typically have in the US, where local officials typically reject state oversight of zoning at all costs.
That’s it for now! If you enjoyed reading this or learned something, I’d love to know what interests you most. In my spare time, I’m hoping to continue researching the French housing system and potential lessons for American housers.
HLM en chiffres 2025, p. 27
Ibid., p. 11
Ibid., p. 14
Ibid., p. 21
Ibid., p. 33
Ibid., p.27
Ibid., p. 1
Thanks for this, i learned a lot. I find it very interesting to see the different general attitude toward this housing issue compared to the US - I wonder how much this is a cultural manifestation, or just resulting from a different political environment? I guess they both affect one another at the end of the day.
I hope to see more progress in affordable housing initiatives around the world, and whether this transition is more effective as a market solution or with strong government support. It was great to read about how France is tackling it. Thanks again.