The Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland (ARA) and the City of Helsinki will host the International Social Housing Festival (ISHF) on 14–17 June. The event invites international housing experts to familiarise themselves with Helsinki’s supported housing solutions.
The City of Helsinki has achieved visible results in preventing inequality between areas through housing policy measures.
Elements often admired in international contexts include social mixing in areas, successful efforts to reduce homelessness, Helsinki’s strong ownership of land, and the City having its own housing developer.
Walking tours, workshops, exhibitions
The theme of the ISHF event is the role of social housing production in the creation of a socially and ecologically sustainable city. The event has a rich programme, featuring lectures, workshops, exhibitions and tours held by various Finnish and international organisations and operators.
For example, the City of Helsinki will provide guided walking tours to Jätkäsaari and Mellunmäki. The event and its entire programme will be in English only.
Over the course of the event, the attending international supported housing operators will present themselves in the fair area spreading over the event plaza of the City Hall lobby.
Registration open
You can sign up for the event until it begins. The festival is also an opportunity to network with international social housing operators. Attendees from 30 different countries have already signed up.
Read more about the event programme
and sign up(Link leads to external service)
The festival is organised by Housing Europe, an organisation featuring supported housing operators from 25 European countries. The festival has previously been held in Lyon and Amsterdam.
For the festival, Helsinki has published an account of the history of the City’s housing policy. The publication sheds light on the historical development of housing and housing policy in Helsinki from the 1940s onwards, while also giving an overview of current housing policy decisions. The account is enlivened with photographs from Helsinki City Museum’s collections.
Read online: Helsinki’s housing policy – A
historical overview and the current situation