Housing Thessaloniki is a local social-housing project led by the Major Development Agency of Thessaloniki (MDAT) through its Social Rental Agency (SRA), working with the Municipality of Thessaloniki and Greece’s Ministry of Family and Social Cohesion.1 The project began in 2023 and aims to create a practical system for bringing vacant homes into social and affordable use.1
The project responds to housing exclusion in a city with a large stock of empty homes: the case study reports around 35,000 formerly residential vacant properties in the metropolitan area and more than 16,500 in the central municipality.1 Rather than relying on new construction, the SRA’s pilot works with long-term vacant homes owned by public institutions. It renovates and improves their energy performance, then matches the homes with low-income households.1
The initial pilot involved 40 housing units and was funded through the Recovery and Resilience Facility in collaboration with the municipality and the ministry.1 The agency also developed procedures for transferring use rights, signing tenancy agreements, procuring renovation work, matching properties with beneficiaries and setting social rents, addressing gaps in Greece’s legislative and institutional framework for social housing.1 Project materials identify Meriç Özgüneş and Penny Seferiadou as members of the SRA team; Özgüneş coordinates the agency’s housing programmes.1112
The project’s work extends beyond the pilot: MDAT has used city-wide research to inform Thessaloniki’s affordable and social-housing strategy, and the SRA model has been incorporated into structural-fund planning, with funding earmarked for agency operations in the current programming period.1 The project is local in scope and focuses on people experiencing homelessness, poverty or social exclusion.1