The ‘value of solidarity’ in the Public Housing stock alienation. A case study in Palermo (Italy)

As many low-income households have still been facing the problem of affordable housing, in several countries governmental institutions have implemented various measures of housing policy and are supporting both the “right to housing” and the “right to buy” a dwelling at a subsidized price. Alienation of public housing is a political measure mostly directed towards low-income tenants, by which the dwellings are sold at a price set by law, assumed as a “administered” price. The gap between market and administered prices may be considered as the “value of solidarity” to be taken into account as the monetary reference of the social housing welfare policies aimed at reducing social inequities. The solidarity value approach has been implemented here to identify some measurements of the overall management efficiency (concerning the allocation of the public housing asset) and the social equity between the tenants whose “right to buy” should be fostered. The management efficiency concerns the ratio between the “administered price”, fixed according to the regulations in force, and the potential property market price; the social equity concerns the homogeneity of the prices registered over the actual transfers. The model is applied to a case study in the city of Palermo (southern Italy), where the Municipality implemented an ‘Alienation and Real Estate Development Plan’.