Social housing : measures to attract private finance

Private finance has been playing an increasing role in the financing of social housing. The entry of private financing has coincided with a withdrawal of governments from the direct provision and financing of social housing. This reflects strong global trends to limit the activities of government in a variety of its traditional roles and instead seek increased engagement of the private and not-for-profit sectors. While the private sector is playing an increasing role in social housing finance, the inability of social housing tenants to pay market rents means a mixed model of housing finance operates in the sector. In these mixed models, there are a variety of financing mechanisms which are listed in Table 1. The global financial crisis (GFC) has seen a significant change in the nature of the private financing mechanisms in many countries.