Visegrad Affordable Housing Workroom
In Bratislava, purchasing a 70 m² flat takes on average 12.3 years of net income. In Prague, as many as 15. Public housing stocks have meanwhile shrunk to a fraction of what they once were – in Bratislava, the share of private housing increased from 12% in 1992 to 70% in just six years. V4 countries share these problems, yet for a long time addressed them in isolation. As one of the partner organisations put it during the project:
"What is missing is not ideas. It is political continuity, public legitimacy for non-market housing, and the capacity to scale what already works."
The project looked for ways to share experiences and learn across borders. In partnership with Arnika – Centrum pro podporu občanů from Prague, Miasto Jest Nasze from Warsaw, and ACRED from Budapest, we mapped the causes and possible solutions to the housing crisis in the V4 from the perspective of organisations working with it every day. Not from a distant, statistical vantage point, but from a situated, practice-based one.
Spolka contributed to the project in five ways:
- Housing expertise. We gave a talk at five project events and numerous panels outside the project, contributing perspectives on housing unaffordability in Slovakia in the context of the global crisis.
- Comparative research. We designed and led an internal questionnaire among the partner organisations, whose findings form the analytical backbone of the joint publication. We compared housing affordability, public policies, and local innovations across the knowledge and experience of our four organisations.
- Workshop for municipalities. In June 2025, we organised a working meeting in Košice titled Housing in the Hands of Municipalities. We created a space where representatives of the Košice and Prešov municipal administrations could speak openly.
- Publication. We co-edited the international publication and contributed a chapter focused on the experience of municipalities in Košice and Prešov, their tools, barriers, and partial solutions in the area of public housing.
- Graphic and language preparation. We produced the graphic design for all language versions of the publication and the language editing of the Slovak text.
The outcome of the project is a readers friendly illustrated comparative publication, Unaffordable Housing in the Visegrad: An Illustrated Handbook, available in five language versions. It brings together regional analysis and country-specific chapters, and is intended for the wider public as well as for municipalities, practitioners, and researchers. Its launch and the closing panel discussion with all international partners took place in 2026.
The project is co-financed by the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund.
The Visegrad Affordable Housing Workroom builds on Spolka's long-term engagement with housing questions – from the evaluation of Bratislava's Municipal Rental Agency to research on social innovation in housing in Košice, and the publication Housing in Times of Crisis. Housing is one of the topics we approach systematically and over the long term.
