The Future of Housing: From Empty Spaces to Homes is a one-day conference hosted by Habitat for Humanity on 24 November 2026 at the Silesian Museum in Katowice, Poland, with a livestream for remote participants. It is the final conference of the Empty Spaces to Homes initiative, launched in 2024 with support from the Laudes Foundation. The initiative works with local partners across Europe through demonstration projects, research, financing solutions and policy advocacy to explore how vacant and underused properties can be converted into affordable, energy-efficient homes.1
The conference is intended for city representatives, policymakers, researchers, housing experts, housing providers and financial institutions. Its purpose is to share practical experience and research, discuss policy, and consider how lessons from the initiative could inform future action and be applied more widely. The page does not name individual speakers or other key people; it says speaker announcements will follow.1
Four sessions will address municipal approaches to identifying and reusing vacant buildings; financing models for reuse; the social, environmental and economic benefits of bringing properties back into use; and how renovation, energy-efficiency and housing policies can support that work. Participants will also hear findings from Habitat for Humanity’s Home at What Cost? research on housing affordability and insecurity.1
The initiative’s work includes a demonstration project in Bytom, Poland, where an abandoned 19th-century building was converted into four energy-efficient apartments, and vacancy research covering Poland, Great Britain, Hungary and Croatia. The conference will also look at how cities and other partners might take reuse further: Habitat for Humanity’s stated longer-term vision is to work with at least 50 European cities by 2030.1