Financing Housing Justice- Approaches to advance anti-discriminatory, democratic, sustainable and caring housing futures

The networking event will bring together participants to identify justice-oriented housing finance pathways that challenge unsustainable housing systems. A diverse group of housing, finance, policy, advocacy, and research actors will engage with the question of “A New Deal for Housing Finance” with the objective to bridge the often-siloed discussions on housing rights and finance. The event will launch a collaborative publication by the Hub for Housing Justice. This co-produced publication will showcase guiding principles and concrete actions (like policies, programmes, and partnerships) that promote the systemic transformation of a financing architecture that enables housing justice. The event will take forward the recommendations of the publication, identifying the main pathways to implement such actions. Particularly, the session will focus on approaches to strengthen financing mechanisms to advance housing justice and the propositions promoted by the Hub for Housing Justice: anti-discriminatory housing policy and practices, radically democratic forms of housing production, the promotion of housing as an infrastructure for more sustainable and caring cities, and policies that broaden housing imaginations. Participants will reflect on the role that different actors should play in mobilising resources for housing justice objectives. The event will also help develop strategic alliances to implement housing finance mechanisms that advance socially just and environmentally sustainable outcomes. The discussion will be divided into two sections. A first round of interventions will present the outcomes of the collaborative publication and propose next steps to advance housing justice. This first round will discuss concrete experiences of finance innovation, including members of grassroots groups from Namibia, and awardees from the 2026 World Habitat Award from India. The next interactive round will offer the perspectives of finance actors like multilateral banks, governments, and philanthropies, who will reflect on opportunities and challenges to advance concrete steps to reform the finance architecture towards more transformative housing policy and practice – through justice-oriented financing mechanisms, redistributive policy instruments, etc. Participants will be invited to exchange with the different panelists, and to co-develop common approaches and commitments to advance anti-discriminatory, democratic, sustainable and caring housing futures.