Social housing: Homes4All launches a model to regenerate unused properties and create affordable housing

To provide professionals, businesses, third-sector organisations and other stakeholders operating in the housing sector with the know-how needed to transform unused properties into accessible homes, by sharing models that have been tried and tested in social, financial and management terms. With an added benefit: joining the network without having to set up a local company straight away, allowing initiatives to emerge from dialogue and defining the forms of collaboration to be implemented only at a later stage, depending on the projects, resources and parties involved.

This is the proposal put forward by Homes4All, a benefit corporation founded in Turin in 2019, which acquires, renovates and manages property to expand access to housing, including for people in need. This collaborative effort takes shape through Homes4All LAB, a network of expertise launched in April and presented at the end of September: it already involves organisations in Verona, Brescia, Forlì, Bologna, Florence, Turin and Varese, with a national and international outlook.

The starting point for the whole initiative is the recognition of the gap between unused housing stock and the supply actually available. Cresme estimates a potential need for around 700,000 homes, taking into account waiting lists for social housing, overcrowding and housing difficulties. On the other hand, there are the millions of homes recorded by Istat as unoccupied. ‘The idea that administrative or tax measures can simply make one figure fit into the other doesn’t work,’ explains Matteo Robiglio, co-founder of the company and lecturer at the Polytechnic University of Turin. Among those homes are mountain cottages and second homes, and the fact that nobody lives there permanently does not mean they are unused. To truly make this housing stock available, we need to offer guarantees to owners, draw up contractual agreements, secure financing and, where necessary, organise building works. It is a task involving meticulous legal, financial and technical engineering. Only with genuine safeguards can owners make their properties available and also be strongly motivated by the social purpose of the initiative.”

The LAB model stems from the experience gained during Homes4All’s initial attempts at expansion, when it began setting up regional companies with local partners and investors, opening the first one in Genoa in April 2025. This approach is still viable, but it requires time and organisational arrangements that are not always compatible with a collaboration in its early stages. ‘Setting up new companies with local investors takes time,’ explains Federico Disegni, managing director. ‘But the need for support is urgent, as evidenced by the many requests received since the start of operations from public authorities, property owners, third-sector organisations and professional firms. The idea behind the LABs is to pool the experience gained and the network of relationships built up, together with the skills and knowledge that each member brings to the table, in order to provide faster and more effective responses.”

Membership of LABs, which is annual and renewable, provides access to partners with whom to develop new projects. Opportunities may arise amongst members, from local areas or from enquiries received by Homes4All. Potential partners include designers, builders, property developers and social organisations, as well as accountants and solicitors who identify assets suitable for reuse. ‘An architectural practice may be highly specialised in certain areas, but it may lack the services, research, financial contacts or social dimension,’ explains Disegni. ‘In Homes4All, it finds a partner that complements the skills it lacks. The exchange works both ways. A LAB may identify a project within its own area or be brought in by us following a request received directly by the company.”