One of the most distressing features of the financialization of housing is the disdain that investors hold for housing as anything other than a potential investment bonanza. How do we know this? Because increasingly, any consideration of the value of housing as shelter is being abandoned in a very obvious way: investors are holding their speculative investments — homes — away from the ‘nuisance’ of the housing market. They sit empty, useless to anybody but those who would make a profit of their purchase and sale.
So are Lisbon, Portugal’s 48,000 empty homes in the city all vacant because it is more convenient to speculators than renting them out? Unlikely they will all be vacant for that same reason. But they represent, in a growing world affordability crisis, a possible way of one city in one country to mitigate the problem that is squeezing so many citizens towards homelessness.
A possible way? What way? Lisbon City is teaming up with students with the idea of answering the question. Their innovative idea? To holding a hackathon in partnership with a local tech business startup on 28-29 May, 2022.
How would such a ‘hackathon’ work? And what incentive might spur students towards finding a suitable civic solution for 48,000 empty homes?
And could such a solution for Lisbon spark similar visionary results in other cities with similar ‘problems?’ Read more at TheMAYOR.eu: Lisbon to solve ‘empty houses’ problem with a hackathon
“Lisbon to solve . . . ?” Okay, TheMAYOR.eu is just a teensy bit optimistic in their headline. Still, there’s always room for optimism these days, particularly when it might help a great many communities around the world to deal with their seemingly intractable housing affordability problems. Stay tuned!
