Walking the Brussels Housing Crisis
Marking World Habitat Day in the EU capital, this guided walk highlights the reality of social housing shortages, building vacancy, and tenant displacement in Brussels. Local urban issues reflect broader European structural challenges. To address these systemic roots, Volt is co-leading an EU-wide initiative with House Europe! to demand an official EU Housing Agency and pan-European rent affordability protections.
Join us on World Habitat Day for a guided neighbourhood walk exploring the reality of Brussels’ housing crisis up close. We’ll visit social housing blocks and other relevant sites, hear about the neighbourhood and the experiences of people who live there, and discuss affordable housing, empty buildings, redevelopment and what needs to change.
Along the way, Léonor Michiels, Coordinatrice développement social – Senne at SoHab asbl (Association de Solidarité pour l’Habitat), will help us understand the transformation of Rempart des Moines and what redevelopment and rehousing mean for residents, community ties and neighbourhood life. We are also exploring the possibility of hearing directly from a local resident about their experience.
Alexia Falisse, Chargée de mobilisation at the Rassemblement bruxellois pour le droit à l'habitat (RBDH), will help connect what we see locally to the wider housing-rights situation in Brussels, including affordability, access to housing and the structural challenges behind the crisis.
The walk is organised as part of the European Citizens’ Initiative on the Right to Housing and will finish with an informal moment where participants can continue the conversation together.
