Affordable Housing for All – Budapest (AHA Budapest) is an initiative spearheaded by the Municipality of Budapest, launched in 2024 and supported by European Urban Initiative funding of nearly €5 million. The organization addresses two intertwined problems in the city: persistent shortages of affordable housing and widespread energy poverty, both worsened by rising living costs and a deteriorating social housing stock.
The program’s signature project, Demo Hub, involves transforming a long-abandoned vocational school in Újpest into energy-efficient rental housing for 26 families. The design embraces modular interiors to accommodate various family sizes, including large, accessible units. Works are scheduled so that the first tenants will move in by mid-2026. In addition, AHA Budapest’s team is piloting a data-driven early warning system meant to identify households at risk of arrears or energy poverty, with the aim of delivering prompt social support and preventing evictions.
AHA Budapest’s approach also includes testing flexible housing schemes such as cohabitation or flat exchange, and the introduction of a revolving fund for energy-efficiency renovations. The broader goal is to use this project as a testbed for methods that could be applied to repurpose up to 15 similar unused public buildings across the city in the years to come.
The initiative brings together the capital’s local government, NGOs, urban researchers, architects, and energy experts, seeking to foster practical, replicable models for affordable and sustainable urban housing in Budapest.