Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner defended the Trump administration’s efforts to address housing affordability in an exclusive statement to Breitbart News on Monday, as newly released data showed confidence among U.S. homebuilders falling to its lowest level since June 2012 amid rising mortgage rates, construction costs, and weakening buyer demand.

The post Exclusive — HUD Secretary Scott Turner Defends Trump’s Housing Reforms: ‘America Cannot Regulate Its Way to Affordability’ appeared first on Breitbart.

European Union ministers have adopted a new recommendation calling for stronger measures to prevent homelessness and housing exclusion, as governments face increasing pressure over housing shortages and the cost of accommodation.

The recommendation was approved at a meeting of employment and social affairs ministers in Luxembourg on Monday, 19 October, and forms part of the European Commission’s wider efforts to address Europe’s housing crisis.

It proposes measures ranging from early intervention for households facing eviction to increased investment in affordable housing, improved access to social services and more coordinated support for people without permanent accommodation.

However, the recommendation is not legally binding. Member States will retain responsibility for deciding which measures to introduce, how they should be financed and the extent to which existing national housing policies should be changed.

More than one million people affected

According to the Council’s announcement, more than one million people are estimated to experience homelessness across the European Union.

The problem extends beyond people sleeping on streets or using emergency shelters.

The term housing exclusion also encompasses households living in inadequate accommodation, people facing imminent eviction and those unable to secure stable housing because of financial or personal circumstances.

The Council identifies poverty, unemployment, domestic violence, disability, poor health and insufficient affordable housing among the factors contributing to the problem.

Housing costs have also risen considerably faster than incomes in several European countries.

Between 2013 and 2024, nominal house prices increased by more than 60 per cent across the EU. In some Member States, average increases exceeded 220 per cent during the same period.

These developments have placed additional pressure on households with lower incomes, particularly in cities where rental accommodation is increasingly expensive and social housing is limited.

The shortage affects not only unemployed people but also individuals in paid employment whose earnings are insufficient to cover market rents.

Prevention before eviction

A central element of the new recommendation is the introduction or strengthening of national strategies intended to prevent homelessness before people lose their accommodation.

The Council encourages Member States to establish early-warning mechanisms capable of identifying households experiencing serious financial or housing difficulties.

Proposed interventions include debt counselling, emergency rental assistance, mediation between landlords and tenants, and appropriate safeguards against forced eviction.

The emphasis on prevention reflects the potentially substantial social and financial consequences of losing stable accommodation.

Once a person becomes homeless, obtaining employment, maintaining healthcare arrangements and securing permanent accommodation can become considerably more difficult.

The Council also calls for particular attention to children, young people leaving care and people facing domestic abuse.

Member States are encouraged to ensure that children have access to adequate housing and that young people leaving institutional or foster care are not placed at risk of homelessness because appropriate support arrangements are unavailable.

Greater emphasis on permanent housing

The recommendation promotes a housing-led approach, under which securing suitable and stable accommodation becomes a central element of the response to homelessness.

This differs from policies relying primarily on emergency shelters or temporary accommodation, although such facilities remain necessary for people facing immediate housing difficulties.

Housing-led programmes can include permanent accommodation accompanied by individual support services, depending on the person’s circumstances.

The Council also proposes simplifying access to social and healthcare services through integrated arrangements that allow people to obtain assistance without repeatedly approaching different public authorities.

One suggested model involves providing access to relevant services through a single contact point, with support from social workers, healthcare professionals and other organisations.

However, access to permanent housing ultimately depends on the availability of suitable properties.

The recommendation therefore calls for increased public and private investment in affordable and social housing, renovation of existing accommodation and support for non-profit housing models.

Questions over implementation and funding

The non-binding character of the recommendation remains one of its principal limitations.

European institutions can coordinate policies, provide guidance and support investment, but national governments and local authorities retain substantial responsibility for housing provision and social welfare arrangements.

The recommendation does not automatically establish a new EU housing entitlement or provide dedicated funding to every Member State.

Its effectiveness will depend on whether governments introduce measures capable of increasing housing supply and reducing the number of people entering homelessness.

The European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless, known as FEANTSA, previously welcomed the Commission’s proposal while identifying shortcomings.

In its assessment of the original proposal, the organisation argued that EU policy should place greater emphasis on permanently ending homelessness rather than primarily managing housing exclusion.

It also questioned the adequacy of funding arrangements and the proposed five-year interval for national progress reporting.

Five-year assessment planned

Under the adopted recommendation, Member States are encouraged to provide the European Commission with information on the effectiveness of their national strategies every five years.

The Commission is expected to evaluate national progress and report to the Council five years after the recommendation’s adoption.

The policy follows the European Affordable Housing Plan, presented in December 2025, and the EU’s Anti-Poverty Strategy, introduced in May 2026.

Together, these initiatives seek to expand the Union’s role in coordinating housing policy without transferring national housing responsibilities to Brussels.

The first indication of whether the recommendation will produce measurable results will come from national decisions on social housing investment, eviction prevention and access to permanent accommodation. Without changes to those practical arrangements, the Council’s commitments will remain principally a framework for voluntary cooperation.

Tenants apply for an apartment listed at one price, only to find that they owe their landlords even more.

Exclusive: Chris Hinchliff urges environment watchdog to block rules that will allow almost 16,000 new homes in one of UK’s most protected areas

The environment watchdog is being urged to intervene in “cash to trash” planning rules that will allow almost 16,000 new homes in the Norfolk Broads despite the damage to one of the UK’s most environmentally protected areas.

Labour’s flagship planning reforms allow damage to protected habitats and species to be overlooked if developers pay into a central nature restoration fund, which is used for conservation actions at a later date. These environmental delivery plans (EDPs) have been called “cash to trash” by critics, who say they roll back decades of environmental law and are a “licence to kill nature”.

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© Photograph: Jim Laws/Alamy

© Photograph: Jim Laws/Alamy

© Photograph: Jim Laws/Alamy

When we can’t even afford to rent or buy somewhere to live, we have to ask: did we give the financial sector too much power?

• Leilani Farha is the former UN special rapporteur on adequate housing

In the summer of 2021, I visited a homeless community in a park in Toronto, Canada, and spoke to one of the residents. He was living in a tent in the shadow of brand new skyscrapers, and had been homeless for about five years. At one point he swivelled around, pointed up at a crane on the skyline, and said: “Who are they building those for? Definitely not for me.”

He was right. And he captured something experienced by ordinary people around the world: the growing conviction that the housing system is no longer tethered to their needs. What he was pointing at is not just a housing crisis. It is a crisis of democracy.

Leilani Farha is the 2026 CBC Massey lecturer. This piece is based on her new book: Housing Inc.: A Global Takeover and Our Fight for Home. She is the former UN special rapporteur on adequate housing and the global director of the international human rights organisation, The Shift

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© Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian

© Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian

© Illustration: Nathalie Lees/The Guardian

Scrutiny committee looks into financing of Manchester Life project as PM promises ‘full transparency’

A £55m loan to Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi owner will be investigated as part of a review into a fund for housing projects while Andy Burnham was mayor.

The prime minister has faced weeks of scrutiny over his links to Manchester City’s super-rich owners after the club was found guilty of boosting its income by £900m in a nine-year breach of financial rules.

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© Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

Loulé Council has issued a stark warning over the Algarve’s housing crisis, describing the situation as both a “housing emergency” and a “human emergency” and calling for exceptional powers to

The post Loulé demands emergency powers to tackle Algarve housing crisis appeared first on Portugal Resident.

As house prices plateau, the gap between the cost of buying and renting is narrowing in dozens of suburbs

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High rents and falling property prices have opened a rare window for Australian tenants to become homeowners, with mortgage repayments cheaper than rent in dozens of suburbs.

Guardian Australia’s analysis of Cotality data shows that median rents in inner-city Melbourne, suburban Canberra and Darwin are now nearly matching weekly home loan repayments.

In one in 10 suburbs and towns across the country, repayments are less than $200 a week higher than rent, for the typical property. In some suburbs, they are actually cheaper.

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© Photograph: Westend61/Getty Images

© Photograph: Westend61/Getty Images

© Photograph: Westend61/Getty Images

• Valerie Cherry was thrilled when her first grandchild was born. She wanted to be a hands-on grandma.
• The mom-of-one yearned to be closer to the young family but was reluctant to leave her hometown.
• With 1,000 miles between them, she found a "middle ground" by renting nearby for half of the year.

This story is based on an interview with Valerie Cherry, 68, a clinical psychologist from Tampa, Florida. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My husband, Glenn, 68, and I were delighted when our first grandchild — a little girl —was born four years ago.

Our son, Jamal, is an only child, and we are a very close-knit family.

We rushed from our home in Tampa to help him and our daughter-in-law, Sierra, who had settled 1,000 miles away in Houston, with the demands of a baby.

Our trips lasted between a month and six weeks, and there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the two cities.

We'd either stay with the family or rent Airbnbs to give everyone a bit of space.

It felt great to be hands-on and useful, especially because Jamal and Sierra work very hard in finance and forensic psychology, respectively.

Back home in Florida, though, we lived life to the full in our gated, suburban community. Glenn, a relief veterinarian, and I had meaningful friendships there.

We knew lots of people, particularly fellow alumni from our colleges in Georgia. There was always something going on, like book clubs and fundraising activities.

Then our grandson was born two years ago. We continued our long visits to care for him and his sister, flying between the two cities.

We started to look at places in Houston

Soon after his birth, Jamal and Sierra approached us about what it felt like when we weren't there. They were a bit nervous and wanted to know whether we'd consider moving close by.

We were torn. As much as we wanted to be with our grandchildren, we valued our time in Tampa. Still, we started to look at places in Houston.

The trouble was that if we were to purchase something in Houston, it would have had to be in the suburbs. Traffic is terrible, so it would have been around a 40-minute drive to my son's.

Another factor was that we didn't want to be tied down by taxes, insurance, and all of that in Texas because we didn't want to give up our home in Tampa.

I Googled other options and came across a building called Landing right in downtown, a little over 10 minutes from the family.

It was different from other arrangements because you could stay there for as long or as short a period as you liked.

We paid a membership fee and secured a two-bedroom apartment that was already furnished. The only things we brought were a couple of pots for the kitchen.

We found a middle ground

It now works out that we spend around seven months a year in Houston and five in Florida. However, the 4,800-square-foot house in Tampa is classified as our main residence.

The apartment is much smaller at 1,600 square feet, but we like it very much. There are two swimming pools in the building, playrooms, and a basketball court.

I feel like we have found a middle ground. We can spend quality time with our grandkids, especially when their parents are on a date or away for the weekend.

We're busy planning for Halloween this year as it's a big thing for us all.

We haven't lost our identity as grandparents

Meanwhile, if one of the children gets a fever at day care or school, Glenn or I can pick them up. It's an extra pair of hands.

We haven't lost our identity now that we're known as Nana and Papa. We regularly fly back and forth to Florida to enjoy the company of longtime friends.

Our neighbors keep an eye on the house while we're away, too. It's reassuring.

I know we're privileged to be in this position, but it really is the best of both worlds.

Portugal’s government has hardened its rhetoric over the housing protests in Porto, warning that it “will not give in to shouts from the street” and insisting the country’s housing crisis

The post Government ‘will not give in to shouts from the street’ over housing protests – minister appeared first on Portugal Resident.

Production: By Europod, in co-production with Sphera Network.

EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms.

Find the full transcript below:

Do you remember the Yellow Vests movement that shook France 2018? On TikTok, a young user has called for a national mobilisation on the seventeenth of October against the cost of living, and the video quickly went viral. So could the Yellow Vests make their big return?

“Please, give us a date, we’re ready to protest! We young people are struggling. We just can’t make a living anymore,” that’s what Justine, a TikToker from Normandy in France has posted a few weeks ago, while wearing a fluorescent yellow vest.

The reference to the 2018 Yellow Vests is unmistakable. The French movement, which began in protest at rising fuel prices, has been widely revived on social media in recent weeks, especially by younger users.

Our colleague Romane Lizée from StreetPress, a fellow member of the Sphera Network alongside Europod, spoke to some of them: young people reviving a protest movement they only knew from a distance.

Yves, a 24-year-old TikToker with over 80,000 followers, made a video called “Survival Guide for the Yellow Vests 2026”. He gives would-be protesters practical advice, such as bringing thick ski goggles or writing a lawyer’s phone number on a piece of paper.

So why is the movement resurfacing now? For many, the movement has come to stand for a general sense of being fed up, something they still feel today.

 “Eight years ago, France put on the yellow vest because petrol hit 1.50 euros a litre, and now we’re almost at three euros and nothing is happening!” That’s how Saïd, a 23-year-old delivery driver, sees it.

The economic context is indeed worse than it was eight years ago. The price of fuel is now almost 2.40 euros a litre.

Throughout September, a series of protests followed one another, called by different professions and for different reasons: climate action, firefighters, a public-sector strike, the law on sexual violence, and finally the student blockades.

High school students have been protesting for a few weeks now, blockading their schools to demand better conditions. We talked about this in a previous Briefed episode. You can find the link in the description.

Now, will the protest be as big and long-lasting as the one in 2018?

Online, a petition launched by the website 17octobregiletjaune, which calls for the protest, has gathered more than 21,000 signatures. Over a thousand actions across the country have been identified on a map by the same website: mostly protests in several cities, but also actions on roundabouts and at petrol stations.

Youth organisations, students’ unions and education staff have already answered the call. More importantly, the CGT, one of France’s main labour unions, has backed it, as have some political figures, like Marine Tondelier, the Green candidate for the presidential election. Still, the true extent of the movement is difficult to predict.

In other European countries, protests are also multiplying, especially among young people. In Spain, huge demonstrations for the right to housing have been taking place in several cities since mid-September. They went quite far: they pushed Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call snap elections.

In Brussels, on October 9th, thousands of protesters, including rail workers, teachers, and university and secondary school students, marched against the federal government’s policies, in particular its socio-economic measures. Here again, precarity is a central grievance.

In Italy, on October 8th, students called for mobilisation, notably by camping in front of universities across the country to protest against the sharp rise in tuition fees and student rents.

The triggers behind these protests are not all the same, and the mobilisations take different forms from country to country. But the goal is broadly the same: to call for better living conditions and to defend basic social rights. And young people are particularly mobilised.

Dutch Housing Minister Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan drew sharp criticism this week after defending priority access to scarce social housing for recognized refugees, arguing that many young Dutch first-time home seekers “can still live with their parents.”

In an interview with De Telegraaf, the D66 minister was asked why status holders — asylum seekers granted residence permits — should receive preference for social rental homes while Dutch “starters” face long waiting lists and delayed independence. She responded that “we see that a lot of starters can still, or are allowed to, live with their parents.”

Migrants get affordable housing before Dutch natives. When asked why migrants receive access to affordable housing before young Dutch people looking for a "starter" home, the Dutch housing minister said that many Dutch first-time home seekers "can still live with their parents." Mass migration contributed to 60% of the increase in housing demand in the Netherlands since 2015, yet Minister Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan still believes in putting migrants first. "For me, the fundamental principle is that anyone who is allowed to and wants to live in the Netherlands gets a roof over their head," she said. In the Netherlands, Dutch natives are increasingly relegated to living with their parents while migrants get to skip massive waiting lists and gain "emergency" access to cheap social housing. Follow: @RMXnews

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) October 14, 2026

Dutch commentator and activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek wrote on X that the policy amounted to “systemic racism.”

“And not just the ‘new’ newcomers. A 25-year-old Syrian who came here with his parents years ago jumps the queue for a home when he decides he wants to live on his own. Meaning a 25-year-old white Dutch guy can forget about getting his own place and ends up on waiting lists for 10+ years,” she wrote, adding: “Putting the interests of foreigners above the interests of the native population needs to end.”

Talking about systemic racism: Young Dutch people can barely find a place to live, because migration drove 60% of the housing demand since 2015, regular prices are insane, and migrants get PRIORITY for the affordable social housing. And not just the “new” newcomers. A 25-year-old Syrian who came here with his parents years ago jumps the queue for a home when he decides he wants to live on his own. Meaning a 25 year-old white Dutch guy can forget about getting his own place and ends up on waiting lists for 10+ years. But according to our minister of housing that’s fine because they can just continue to “live with their parents.” Putting the interests of foreigners above the interests of the native population, needs to end. That’s why with the @SaveEuropeAct, apart from demanding closed borders and Remigration, we also demand 
Removing social welfare incentives and benefits that function as pull factors for migration.

— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) October 13, 2026

Boekholt-O’Sullivan, an Irish-born former lieutenant general in the Dutch Air Force who took office earlier this year, claims that anyone who wants to live in the Netherlands should get a roof but does not address the major housing crisis brought on by mass immigration.

“For me, the fundamental principle is that anyone who is allowed to and wants to live in the Netherlands gets a roof over their head,” she said. She noted that status holders typically leave asylum reception centers and argued that alternatives such as remaining in centers, homelessness, hotels or cruise ships were unacceptable, so priority allocation should continue until other solutions exist.

The remarks landed amid fresh data underscoring migration’s outsized role in the Netherlands’ housing crunch. A report released this week by the Economic Institute for Construction (EIB) found that migration accounted for about 60 percent of additional housing demand between 2015 and 2024. Migrants who arrived in that period occupied roughly 435,000 homes by 2024, out of nearly 700,000 homes added to the stock.

In addition, data shows that migrants occupy 44 percent of the 2.2 million social housing units in the country.

Dutch housing shortage climbs to 410,000 as 44% of social housing is occupied by those with a migration background

The 44 percent figure of social housing units occupied by first or second-generation immigrants has doubled from 22 percent in 2000, and is forecast to rise to 51 percent by 2030.

A total of 92 percent of Syrian first-generation immigrants reside in social housing. In addition, 90 percent of those born in Somalia, Afghanistan, and Eritrea reside in social housing.

Asylum-related migration contributes disproportionately to lasting demand because status holders remain permanently at high rates, unlike many labor or student migrants who leave within a decade.

Critics said the minister’s comments minimized the burdens on young Dutch adults who have already spent years on waiting lists for social housing or who face high private rents and purchase prices that lock them out of independent living.

Netherlands: Refugees can obtain social housing in just 14 weeks, while many locals wait up to 12 years. Now, a minister is looking to change that.

Social housing waiting lists in major cities often stretch many years; priority rules for status holders allow some recent arrivals to bypass ordinary queues. Dutch population growth in recent years has been driven almost entirely by net migration, amplifying pressure on an already constrained housing market marked by strict planning rules, nitrogen regulations and slow construction.

The latest debate about Dutch housing policy and mass immigration is only one aspect of the massive burden foreigners have been on Dutch society, which shows that Dutch taxpayers have spent €400 billion on migrants between 1995 and 2019.

Netherlands spent €400 billion on migrants between 1995 and 2019, according to new landmark study

The landmark study, entitled “Borderless Welfare State: The Consequences of Immigration on Public Finances,” shows that net costs of immigration to the Dutch public sector over the period 1995-2019 were an astounding €400 billion, averaging €17 billion a year, with a peak of €32 billion in 2016 due to the 2015 refugee crisis.

However, this is far from the total figure. Since 2019, Dutch taxpayers have paid tens of billions more, with no end in sight.

The post Migrants skip the line for affordable housing, while Dutch people ‘can still live with their parents,’ says Dutch housing minister appeared first on Remix News.

The Spanish prime minister has been a lonely champion of progressive values in the EU. But the polls look ominous

When it comes to risk-taking, Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has a formidable track record. In 2018, the Socialist party leader swept to power by triggering a no-confidence vote that unexpectedly ousted his centre-right predecessor Mariano Rajoy. He held on to it against the odds after calling a snap election in 2023, at a time when the popularity of his own party had plummeted and the far right was on the rise.

As he endures another rocky period in office, Mr Sánchez has once more rolled the dice. Last week, he announced a snap poll for November after his minority government was blocked from passing measures to ease Spain’s chronic housing crisis. The eviction of 87-year-old María del Carmen Abascal from her Madrid home sparked nationwide protests over soaring rents and prices. The outrage grew with news of her death last Wednesday. Mr Sánchez clearly hopes that campaigning on a national cause célèbre gives him a chance of winning a stronger progressive mandate next month.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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© Photograph: Javier Soriano/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Javier Soriano/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Javier Soriano/AFP/Getty Images

The Resistance Movement Hezbollah unveiled a housing assistance program on Tuesday to help Lebanese families left homeless or with severely damaged residences by Israeli military strikes, offering subsidies of up to $14,000 for those in Beirut and its southern suburbs.

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The Lebanese resistance movement formally presented the project under the name “Promise and Commitment,” known in Arabic as Wa’ad wa Iltizam.

Officials described it as comprehensive, direct and urgent aid for households whose homes were destroyed or badly damaged during the Israeli aggression.

RELATED: Lebanon Reports 7,700 Israeli Violations of Framework Agreement

The program sets a ceiling of $14,000 for affected families in Beirut and its southern suburb of Dahiye. Of that sum, $8,000 will go toward replacing furniture and household goods, while $6,000 will cover rental costs. In the rest of Lebanon’s affected regions, the maximum assistance reaches $12,000, with rent capped at $4,000.

The payments will be made in four installments over one year, starting with an initial payment of $3,500 for the capital and its suburbs and $3,000 for the rest of the country.

The program covers owners of homes destroyed either fully or partially, as well as displaced people from border zones and areas that remain inaccessible.

The head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, Sheikh Ali Daamoush, announced the resistance’s new “Promise and Commitment” housing assistance program for forcibly displaced families whose homes were damaged by Israeli aggression across Lebanon.

￭ Eligible residential units in… pic.twitter.com/GV2hoCzp0V

— VPol (@VocalPolitics1) October 13, 2026

Damage by the Numbers

A joint report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS-L), published in June, assessed the damage from Israeli attacks up to that date. It found that 11,095 buildings were completely destroyed, affecting 17,891 housing units.

Another 2,242 buildings suffered partial damage, affecting 5,219 units, and 9,311 buildings sustained minor damage, affecting 18,282 units. Damage was estimated at $1.38 billion.

Lebanese authorities have also reported the return of 400,000 displaced people to the south of the country following the Israeli aggression. That return adds urgency to the housing effort, as many families come back to neighborhoods where their homes no longer stand.

The aid program is structured around that reality. By splitting payments across a full year, the initiative aims to cover both immediate needs and the longer process of rebuilding lives and households.

For the poorest households, the initial installments provide a bridge while more durable reconstruction gets underway. The program’s architects say the subsidies address both the loss of possessions and the cost of temporary shelter.

The presentation of the housing project carries political weight beyond its material value. Hezbollah has positioned reconstruction as central to its post-war standing, presenting the rebuilding effort as a form of resilience against what it describes as foreign aggression.

كشف حزب الله عن تفاصيل برنامج الإيواء الجديد، محدّدًا التعويضات بين 12 و14 ألف دولار للوحدة السكنية، بحسب المنطقة، مع دفعة أولى تتراوح بين 3000 و3500 دولار

فكيف ستُصرف المبالغ المتبقية، وما شروط الاستفادة من البرنامج؟

Hezbollah has revealed the details of its new housing… pic.twitter.com/JSH9RQQNEq

— Beirut Politics (@beirut_politics) October 13, 2026

Text reads: “Hezbollah has revealed the details of its new housing assistance program, setting compensation at between $12,000 and $14,000 per residential unit, depending on the area, with an initial payment ranging from $3,000 to $3,500.”

Presenting the initiative, Hezbollah Executive Council head Sheikh Ali Damoush said its implementation would show the victory of reconstruction over destruction and of resistance over what he called foreign barbarity. Damoush sharply criticized the Lebanese government, affirming that authorities have not presented any effective plan to help the hundreds of thousands of displaced people and have not taken responsibility for assessing damage and rebuilding.

The program’s rollout now begins with registration and verification of affected families, followed by the first disbursements.

Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week's newsletter includes stories on:

• The Trump administration's latest strategy for boosting manufactured housing construction.
• Anti-pot activists' use of California's environmental review law to stop new cannabis facilities.
• Yet another data center backlash in the heart of data center country.

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Chassis Gone but Not Forgotten

Building codes for traditional site-built housing are typically set by states or local governments. Manufactured housing, which is built in off-site factories and then delivered as a completed unit to its final destination, is controlled by building codes set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

One major piece of direct deregulation in the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, which became law in July, was the elimination of the HUD code's requirement that manufactured housing sit on a permanent steel chassis.

Wonks debate just how burdensome this rule was and how responsible it was for causing a major decline in the production of manufactured housing.

Regardless, no one believes that the requirement did anything but raise costs for what was once a major source of affordable housing.

While Congress' new housing law officially eliminates the chassis requirement, actually implementing this deregulatory change will require a number of additional federal rules and further local and state deregulation.

The Trump administration got the ball rolling on the former last week, when HUD unveiled its "Next Generation Manufactured Housing Action Plan."

It announced HUD's plan to begin crafting new construction safety and installation standards for now-permitted chassisless manufactured housing. The Road to Housing Act requires this rule change, but does not set a deadline for when it needs to be done.

Additionally, HUD announced its plan to begin rulemaking on creating new energy efficiency standards for manufactured housing, as required by the new housing law. This must be completed by July 2027.

That's the same deadline for states to submit certifications to the federal government that they've changed their own regulations on manufactured housing to conform to the new federal rules that no longer require a chassis.

These rule changes will all take time. We can at least be sure they will happen, given that the changes are required by the new housing law.

A potential bottleneck, as always, will be local zoning codes that are not directly impacted by Congress' reforms.

Many localities still define manufactured housing as a home that's built with a permanent chassis. That language could end up blocking manufactured homes constructed without a chassis under the new standards.

Another plank of HUD's action plan is to provide "stakeholders" with information on zoning for manufactured housing. The 21st Century Road to Housing Act also creates various financial incentives for localities to update their zoning codes to allow for more housing.

That is to say, carrots can still be brought to bear to ensure that local deregulation happens. But voluntary action on the part of localities or additional preemption of local zoning laws by states will still be required for federal chassis reform to be fully realized.

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Anti-Pot Group Uses Environmental Law To Block New Cannabusiness Zoning Rules

Recreational marijuana was legalized by California voters a decade ago. The rule changes needed to allow entrepreneurs to grow and sell the stuff are still a work in progress.

Back in August, after five years of work, San Diego County at last certified its environmental review of zoning changes that would dictate where commercial cannabusinesses like dispensaries and grow operations could set up shop in unincorporated areas.

That certification has merely led to another roadblock.

In September, the group No Skunk Butts filed a lawsuit under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to block implementation of the new zoning rules.

CEQA requires local governments to study the environmental impacts of discretionary actions they undertake, including zoning changes. Third parties are empowered by the law to sue if they believe a locality did not conduct a thorough enough review of a zoning change's environmental impacts.

As reported by Village News, No Skunk Butts alleges in its lawsuit that the county did not do enough to study cannabusinesses' potential impacts on water and air quality, as well as noise and odor.

This is hardly the first time that CEQA has been used to hamstring the expansion of California's legal cannabis industry. Local activists have frequently challenged individual permits for cannabusinesses and, as in San Diego County's case, cannabis zoning and licensing regimes.

In 2017, the California Legislature attempted to forestall some of this litigation by allowing localities to pass cannabis regulatory regimes without going through CEQA. But that reform merely shifted CEQA onto individual businesses, who'd have to do their own environmental analysis when applying for permits.

Despite legalization, California's heavy-handed regulation of the cannabis industry has enabled a large marijuana black market to persist. CEQA is a major, if underdiscussed, part of that story.

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A Data Center Backlash on the Edge of Data Center Alley

Last week, the Board of Supervisors of Fauquier County, Virginia, passed a raft of new restrictions on data center construction.

The new rules eliminate by-right zoning for data centers, meaning new projects will be required to obtain special, discretionary permits. The reforms also limit data center construction to a single zone within the county, reports InsideNoVa.

Prior to the changes, data centers were allowed to be built by right in business parks countywide.

The country is in the middle of a massive backlash against data center construction. It's thus not inherently surprising that a county government would pass new rules on data center construction.

It is conspicuous that Fauquier County would do so. The jurisdiction sits just to the south of Loudoun County, home to the world's largest concentration of data centers. (It's been nicknamed "data center alley.")

Data centers have been a massive economic driver in Northern Virginia and a massive fiscal boon to the Loudoun County government, which has taken in so much revenue from these facilities that it's been able to cut property taxes on homeowners.

Loudoun County itself recently eliminated by-right zoning for data centers, which it once regulated like office spaces.

It doesn't bode well for the industry if jurisdictions that once welcomed data centers with open arms, and profited handsomely from them, are moving to restrict new facilities.

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Spanish trade unions representing millions of workers have announced a general strike for November 11. The announcement comes amid nationwide mobilizations for the right to housing and only days after Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called early elections for November 29.

Read more: Housing crisis leads to snap election in Spain

The strike was announced by the two largest union organizations, the General Union of Workers (UGT) and the Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CCOO), alongside the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), Basque unions ELA and LAB, and the Galician confederation CIG.

It will be the country’s first general strike in 14 years, excluding the feminist strike of March 8, 2018. 

Housing and wages are the same struggle

“A key demand of this strike is to vindicate decent salaries to afford housing,” the Madrid Tenants Union wrote.

In their strike call, unions emphasized several demands that have been on their agenda for months. These include reductions in working hours, wage increases, health and safety measures in the workplace, eradicating precarious employment and progress in collective bargaining – a process that has been obstructed by employers for almost a year.

Yet, echoing the sentiment voiced on the streets, where hundreds of thousands have protested and erected encampments against a predatory housing system, the trade union call links all these demands to the right to housing.

“This is a strike with very clear foundations and labor demands,” CCOO’s Carlos Gutiérrez said. “Is it being called because working families cannot access affordable housing? Yes. But we cannot separate the inability to access affordable housing from the wage situation in our country and what is happening in the workplace.”

The general strike builds on a protest wave triggered by the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal in late September. After years of battle to keep the home she had been living in for 70 years, Abascal was carried out of the apartment on a stretcher. She remained hospitalized until Wednesday, October 7, when the Madrid Tenants Union announced her death.

“Although a historic agreement was reached that would have allowed her to return to her home, this solution came too late,” the organization wrote. “An absolutely avoidable situation, following an agonizing process.”

A strike against all who “do nothing to solve the housing crisis”

Many of those participating in the protests recognized that Sánchez’s administration failed to implement policies that would truly address the housing crisis. Yet union and civil society statements emphasize the problem goes much further than the behavior of a specific political option.

“It’s important to make clear that this is not a strike against any particular government, but against those who do nothing to solve the housing crisis, and also against the employers, who have kept the Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) blocked for nearly a year,” Patricia Ruiz from UGT was quoted as saying in Público.

Political parties from the center-left to the left have largely expressed support for the strike. Even PSOE figures who share the responsibility for not addressing the housing crisis signaled support for concerns outlined by trade unions.

While a general strike held only a couple of weeks ahead of an election would usually spell trouble for the incumbent administration, local political analysts say this is a peculiar situation that could swing both ways. 

Read more: Far right exploits Ceuta incident to call for border crackdown

Right-wing options are polling high, but ongoing housing mobilizations could steer the electoral campaign away from scapegoating migrants toward issues of social justice – topics they are generally keen to avoid.

Regulation could be the fastest response for tenants facing their next rent payment, Italian MEP Irene Tinagli said. Measures to moderate rent increases and restrict short-term rentals in neighbourhoods under the greatest pressure could help in the short to medium term.

“In the long term we need structural measures that provide a greater supply of affordable homes,” she told the European Newsroom (enr) on Wednesday. That would however require substantial investment and long-term planning, she added.

Tinagli, who chairs the European Parliament’s Special Committee on the Housing Crisis (HOUS), said residential property “has become an asset” and was increasingly attracting investors and real estate funds. These investors were buying entire buildings and evicting tenants or sharply raising rents, she said, describing a pattern seen in cities across the EU.

One such case was Maricarmen Abascal, whose eviction from her longtime Madrid home made her a symbol of Spain’s housing protests. She died in hospital at the age of 87 on October 7, two weeks after her eviction. She never returned home, despite an agreement with the apartment’s owner, Urbagestión, that would have allowed her to return at roughly her previous rent rate.

In the interview, conducted before news of Abascal’s death emerged, Tinagli described Abascal’s eviction as “a case that we are seeing in many other cities and countries across the European Union” and added: “It tells me that we need to do something.”

European tools, local action

While housing remains primarily a national and local responsibility, the EU could provide authorities with tools to act, alongside guidelines and parliamentary resolutions, Tinagli said.

She pointed to greater use of cohesion funds, “reprogramming them to address housing investments”, and more flexible state-aid rules to support social and affordable housing projects.

Work on an Affordable Housing Act, which the European Commission proposed last month, was intended to give authorities clearer criteria for restricting short-term rentals “where they are becoming increasingly invasive of the dynamics of the city,” the Italian politician said.

Such restrictions could range from limits on licences to outright bans, depending on local housing pressures. Reducing potential returns from holiday lets could curb investors’ interest in driving up property prices, she added.

Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old Madrid pensioner whose eviction from the home where she had lived for more than 70 years triggered demonstrations across Spain, has died in hospital. Her case has pushed the country’s housing crisis to the centre of a general election campaign that will culminate in a vote on 29 November.

María del Carmen Abascal, widely known as Maricarmen, died on Wednesday at Madrid’s Gregorio Marañón hospital, where she had been receiving treatment since being evicted from her flat in the Retiro district on 23 September. The Madrid Tenants’ Union, which had supported her during the long-running dispute with the property owner, announced her death. The cause has not been disclosed.

Abascal had lived in the property since 1956, when her father first rented it. The tenancy later passed to her mother and subsequently to Abascal under Spain’s old protected-rent system. A legal dispute began after the property changed hands and Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión challenged her right to remain under the inherited tenancy. The courts eventually sided with the owner after a dispute over the rules governing successive transfers of old rental contracts.

She had been paying about €500 a month. Urbagestión sought a new rent of €2,650 before subsequently proposing €1,650, still above Abascal’s pension of about €1,350 a month. Three earlier attempts to remove her from the property had failed before the eviction was finally carried out on 23 September. Abascal left the building on a stretcher and was taken to hospital.

Her removal quickly became a focus for wider anger over housing costs. Thousands demonstrated in Madrid and other Spanish cities, while protesters established an encampment in Puerta del Sol under slogans including “Ni una Maricarmen más” — “Not one more Maricarmen”. Speaking from hospital after the eviction, Abascal urged demonstrators to continue campaigning and “defend what is yours”.

After negotiations involving Abascal’s representatives, Urbagestión and Madrid’s municipal housing company, an agreement was eventually reached that would have allowed her to return to the flat under a new eight-year tenancy at an affordable rent. She remained in hospital, however, and was never able to return home.

The tenants’ union said the agreement had arrived too late and described the events surrounding the eviction as a turning point in Spain’s housing debate. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez offered condolences to Abascal’s family and those affected by her death. The government had previously described her eviction as the type of case that new housing legislation was intended to prevent.

The political consequences have extended well beyond Madrid. On 29 September, Sánchez’s government approved two emergency housing decrees covering eviction protection, rental contracts and speculative property purchases. One measure would have extended protections for vulnerable households facing eviction until 2030, while the package also proposed restrictions on certain property acquisitions and additional safeguards for tenants.

Congress rejected both decrees on 2 October, with the PP, Vox and Junts voting against the measures. Opponents argued that tighter intervention in the rental market would discourage landlords from offering properties for rent and further restrict supply. Supporters of the measures said stronger tenant protection was necessary amid rapidly rising housing costs.

Three days later Sánchez announced a general election for 29 November, saying he needed a broader parliamentary majority to pursue further reforms. As EU Today reported following the announcement, the election brings an early end to a parliament in which the minority coalition had become increasingly dependent on shifting alliances to pass legislation.

The dispute comes against a substantial housing shortage. The Bank of Spain estimates that the gap between new homes and household formation accumulated to around 750,000 properties between 2021 and 2025. Official data cited in the government’s housing legislation also show that 26.8 per cent of Spanish households renting at market prices spent more than 40 per cent of their income on rent in 2025, compared with an EU average of 18.6 per cent.

Pressure is likely to continue during the campaign. Spain’s main trade union confederations, CCOO and UGT, have backed a nationwide general strike for 11 November over the housing crisis, less than three weeks before polling day. It will be the first general strike jointly backed by the two organisations in 14 years.

Abascal’s death therefore comes as a personal case that began with a dispute over one Madrid flat has become inseparable from a much larger argument over rents, property rights, housing supply and the degree to which the Spanish state should intervene in the market. Those questions are now set to form one of the principal dividing lines of Spain’s November election.

Politicians need to solve the affordability crisis to stop the far-right, social democratic Portuguese prime minister Luís Montenegro told MEPs on Tuesday (6 October).

Opening a debate in Strasbourg, Montenegro called for more lax regulation as a way to address the housing crisis, defended strict migration policies, and expressed support for funding poorer regions in the next EU budget.

He also stressed the importance of lowering fuel prices and prioritising the energy transition to “solve the real problems that people wrestle with,” adding that “our response … has to be felt in the lives of Europeans” to avoid disappointed voters turning to populism and extremism.

Back at home, Montenegro has the far-right Chega (Enough) party on his tail: in the 2025 parliamentary elections, they won 23 percent of the ballots against the Montenegro alliance’s 33 percent.

Now, polls give Chega 27 percent of declared votes for the next parliament, slightly less than the Socialist Party (28 percent) and ahead of the current government coalition (24 percent).

For his part, a Chega MEP (Patriots for Europe), António Tânger Corrêa, challenged Montenegro on Tuesday for relying on wind and solar energy without enough storage in case of blackouts and shutting down coal power plants.

He also warned Montenegro against agreeing to limit unanimous votes in the European Council in future, as representing a blow to Portugal’s sovereign powers.

From his left-wing opponents, Portuguese MEP Catarina Martins pointed out the high rent costs in the country and criticised the government for failing to support low-earning tenants.

In Lisbon, the average rent was only €84 less than the average salary in 2026, according to Portugal’s statistics body.

Montenegro said his government simplified the law around housing construction – much in line with the EU’s focus on deregulation – and proposed tax breaks to encourage investors to build more.

An EU-level policy complementing it “would be very useful,” he said, as long as it simplified existing regulations.

The Affordable Housing Act presented by the EU Commission in early September aims to improve the market for tenants by restricting short-term rentals.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a snap election for late November after two housing bills were defeated in a parliamentary vote on Friday, October 2. The bills came amid widespread mass mobilizations demanding urgent action on the country’s housing crisis, following the eviction of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid.

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of approximately 50 cities over the weekend in support of these demands.

“It is true that there are still many injustices to correct, many social goals to achieve, and many problems to solve – above all in the areas of inequality, public services, and access to housing,” Sánchez said in his speech on Monday, as he appealed to voters to give progressive forces more decisive electoral support to allow them to implement reforms more easily.

Real estate speculation drives housing crisis

While Sánchez’s administration has profiled itself as one of the more progressive governments in Europe in terms of international policy, national movements remain frustrated by the lack of decisiveness it has approached making changes at home – including in housing policy.

For years, tenants unions have been warning against the different ways house-owners, particularly real estate speculation funds, have exacerbated housing insecurity for the general population.

Existing anger spilled over as Maricarmen Abascal, an elderly tenant in Madrid, faced eviction from the home she had lived in for 70 years. After the development company Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión SL acquired the house Abascal lived in, they imposed a 275% rent increase that she was not able to meet, leading, after a lengthy legal process, to her eviction at the end of last month.

Read more: Die Linke wins Berlin election with focus on socialization of housing

The mobilizations that followed addressed a wider set of problems. “Maricarmen’s situation reflects a housing model that prioritizes real estate profits while abandoning the very people who built our neighborhoods over the decades,” Madrid Tenants’ Union (Sindicato de Inquilinas e Inquilinos de Madrid) warned.

“Most serious of all is that this situation cannot be understood without considering the weight of laws inherited from the Franco regime that denied women basic rights,” the union emphasized in May. “The original contract was signed solely by Maricarmen’s father because the legal system of the time rendered women invisible within the family. Had that same contract been signed today, both parents would have been named as holders, and Maricarmen would remain fully protected.”

“Yet an extremely restrictive interpretation of the regulations has ultimately weighed more heavily than social reality, than the desire to protect those who rent, and more than seventy years of roots in a neighborhood,” they added. “For the Madrid Tenants’ Union, the position is clear: no formalistic interpretation of the law can justify evicting an 87-year-old woman from the home where she has lived her entire life simply to boost the profitability of a real estate investment.”

Unions promise building general strike for housing

The protests formulated several demands to the government, including a ban on eviction of vulnerable tenants where alternative housing is not available; a limit to short-term and room rentals; a rent freeze; and an extension for contracts ending in 2026 and 2027.

Such demands were generally by the public, as well as by trade unions. “Housing and work are not separate struggles,” unions wrote, pledging to work towards a general strike for housing. “The rise in rents is a direct transfer of wealth from the working class to rentierism. Our wages end up, month after month, in the pockets of the rentiers who control our homes.”

The uproar pushed Sánchez’s government to reflect these demands in two bills it presented to parliament. Most considered this a significant breakthrough for the housing movement despite the official texts not fully corresponding to the protesters’ vocabulary and the vote taking place on two separate proposals. 

Watered down or not, right-wing and far-right parties voted against both bills.

Read more: Far-right leaders gather in Madrid to “make Europe great again”

“We have a democracy held hostage by rentiers and speculators,” the progressive party Podemos wrote as protests rolled out over the weekend. “The housing mobilization must keep growing and move toward a general strike until the speculators and those who defend them in the institutions have nowhere left to hide.”

“Between now and November 29, the voices of all of us who want peace must be heard,” Irene Montero from Podemos added after the snap election announcement. “Those of us who want our sons and daughters to avoid war and to have healthcare and education, instead of money being spent on weapons; who want homes to live in; who want jobs and time to spend with our loved ones; and who want the cost of living to go down.”