Ship2B Ventures, Change4Legacy and Fundación Ship2B have led a joint working process with 25 leading organizations to find solutions to the challenges of accessing housing in Catalonia. The debate comes at an especially complex moment: the sharp rise in prices has resulted in many families allocating more than 40% of their income to housing costs, particularly in high-pressure areas such as the Barcelona metropolitan region. Rents are increasing faster than wages, and the shortage of public housing is exacerbating situations of residential exclusion and forced displacement. In this context, the organizations have reached consensus on five proposals, which are being publicly presented today.
This systemic process—designed to address the housing issue from an integrated, multi-stakeholder perspective—brought together over 25 entities from the public, private and social spheres. Participants included the Government of Catalonia, the European Investment Bank, the Institut Català de Finances (ICF) and Esade; companies from the sector such as Urbania, 011H, GuinotPrunera and Sogeviso; social organizations such as Fundació Hàbitat3, Provivienda and tuTecho; innovation-focused organizations like IHRB, Avant and Ingeus; and impact-oriented entities such as Ashoka Spain, Open Value Foundation and the Antonio Aranzabal Foundation. The group agreed on a shared vision of the root causes: prices rising faster than incomes, a lack of affordable housing, insufficient available land and long, complex urban-planning procedures.
Based on this analysis, the entities agreed on five lines of action. In the economic sphere, they propose opening new avenues for mobilizing public land, improving financing for industrialized construction projects and developing a digital system based on artificial intelligence to speed up and make licensing and permitting processes more transparent. In the regulatory and urban-planning sphere, they suggest promoting tax incentives that encourage investment in affordable housing and activating vacant housing for social rental through a Social Impact Contract.
Daniel Sánchez, President of Ship2B Ventures, stated that “affordable housing is one of the country’s greatest social and economic challenges and will require mobilizing at least €3.1 billion in private capital in Catalonia.” He also stressed that “the ambition of this process is to move from ideas to concrete projects, mobilize investment and demonstrate that cross-sector collaboration can deliver results.”
The conclusions and the five proposals are being presented today at a meeting that brings together both the participating organizations and new entities interested in joining the next stages of work.
The housing issue in Catalonia is structural in nature and stems from a combination of interrelated factors. Key among them are the mismatch between price growth and wage growth, which reduces access for wide segments of the population; the lack of affordable and public housing—far below that of other European countries; the scarcity and high cost of available land; long administrative and urban-planning timelines; and rising demand due to demographic shifts and labor mobility.
These causes generate visible consequences in people’s lives: financial strain, risk of exclusion, difficulties in becoming independent, displacement toward peripheral areas, longer commute times and reduced employment opportunities. The impact also extends to the economic fabric, limiting the ability to attract and retain talent and increasing pressure on social services.
Addressing the problem requires action on its root causes, not just its symptoms. For this reason, the process has focused on identifying the levers capable of generating deeper and more lasting change.
The process took place within the framework of the Ship2B Impact Forum, an annual event organized by Fundación Ship2B that brings together companies, public administrations, investors and social organizations to advance solutions to social and environmental challenges from a systemic perspective. The forum combines keynote talks with collective working sessions in which diverse stakeholders analyze complex problems from an integrated viewpoint and co-create action-oriented proposals designed to drive systemic change.
In addition to the challenge of affordable housing, the forum tackles other issues related to social and environmental impact each year, such as the energy transition, sustainable mobility, health, inclusive digitalization and support for vulnerable groups. The latest edition brought together more than 250 experts in a process that applies a systemic methodology involving problem analysis, the definition of a shared vision, solution prioritization and the activation of alliances to advance implementation.
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