City: Athens, Greece

Reporting to: Head of the Affordable and Social Housing Department

The Challenge

In recent years, housing costs in Athens have increased significantly, while wages of low- and middle-income residents remained relatively stagnant. As a result, an increasing number of households are experiencing rent burden, housing insecurity, or overcrowding. This disproportionately impacts vulnerable groups such as young workers (up to age thirty-five), single-parent families, and the elderly. It also threatens to undermine local businesses’ ability to attract and retain employees. Paradoxically, however, a large amount of the city’s housing stock is sitting vacant—about 26%,, according to the 2021 census (although utilities data suggests the number might be significantly lower, closer to 7.7 percent). This is a legacy of the 2008 Greek financial collapse, legal disputes with creditors, tangled inheritances within families, and other factors. In parallel, a number of municipal buildings and land parcels are sitting unused. This mismatch between high demand for affordable housing and the presence of dormant or underused assets is both a significant structural challenge and a major opportunity for systemic intervention.

Athens Mayor Haris Doukas has made expanding access to affordable housing a top priority. In November, the Municipal Council approved an integrated housing strategy that will strengthen the city’s capacity to address housing needs—and launch Athens’s first systematic effort to provide social housing. In October, as a first step toward implementation, the city created a new Department of Affordable and Social Housing. The new agency will serve as a central hub for cross-departmental coordination, policy development, stakeholder engagement, and management of assets allocated to housing programs. City leaders hope to expand the supply of social and affordable rental units through three pathways:

• Rehabilitating and repurposing municipal properties.
• Leasing vacant units from public and private owners, as well as charities and foundations, and subletting those units at affordable rates to eligible households.
• Exploring new construction on municipal land where feasible.

The next step is to conduct a structured assessment of the municipal real estate portfolio to identify buildings and land parcels that can be repurposed or developed into affordable housing units. At the same time, the city aims to identify vacant private apartments that could be leased by the municipality and subsequently subleased to eligible households at affordable rates. City leaders are also working on establishing fair and transparent criteria to determine who is eligible to receive city-subsidized housing and how they will be selected, exploring financing mechanisms, and identifying potential partnerships for administering the program.

Key questions and analyses include:

• How can the city systematically collect, organize, and update information on underutilized properties owned by the municipality, foundations and charities, and private parties?
• What assessment tools are needed to evaluate the suitability of these properties for housing programs?
• Which factors determine the viability of the plan? (e.g., renovation costs, operating models, social rental model, financial schemes, energy upgrading and climate adaptation of the building stock)
• What indicators, data flows, and monitoring practices are required for the Housing Department to manage an ongoing affordable housing pipeline and evaluate impact across neighborhoods?

What You’ll Do

The fellow will develop critical tools and frameworks that will help lay the foundation on which the city’s new housing program is built. Workstreams include 1) mapping and prioritizing municipal, charity-owned, and vacant private properties that are suitable for use in housing programs; and 2) developing a model for assessing the feasibility of converting units into affordable or social housing. Key stakeholders to be engaged in this work include the new Department of Affordable and Social Housing; Directorates for Municipal Property, Urban Regeneration & Planning, and Social Services; public-benefit institutions such as foundations, charities, and universities; academic partners and NGOs; and owners of vacant housing units.

Key deliverables include:

• A baseline diagnostic memo outlining early observations across the two workstreams.
• A clean dataset of property and vacant buildings, cost data, and program data, along with analytical notes.
• A map of properties with potential to be leveraged for social and affordable housing.
• A feasibility tool for analyzing the investment needed, operating expenditures, and return on different kinds of buildings.
• A final report including an implementation roadmap (ten to twelve pages) with a two-page executive summary.
• A final presentation to city leadership.

What You’ll Bring

The fellow will be expected to possess the following skills:

• Data Analysis
• Design Thinking
• Financial Modeling
• Mapping (GIS)
• Policy Analysis
• Qualitative Interviewing and Analysis
• Knowledge of housing/social policy, urban planning, and public administration
• Greek Fluency (preferred)

Apply here

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