Opinion Piece: Towards a Dedicated SDG on Housing Beyond 2030

This text is a call to action. We share it with the intention that it may circulate, be reused, adapted, and serve as a foundation for dialogue, advocacy, and decision-making. The issues it raises go beyond this text—they call for collective mobilization. By Christine Auclair and Xavier Crépin, members of AdP

Housing has been recognized as a fundamental right for over 75 years, following a period of post-war reconstruction and the development of affordable housing policies, initiated by the United Nations in the 1990s and further accelerated after the 2007–2009 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

And yet, housing remains one of the blind spots of global sustainable development policies and international aid. Millions remain homeless. Everywhere, inequalities in access to adequate housing are deepening.

Housing has become one of the main indicators of contemporary inequalities. And yet, within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is no objective specifically dedicated to housing. It is diluted within a single target—Target 11.1. But this target is insufficient: it is too technical, fails to reflect lived realities, does not capture evictions or affordability crises, and does not effectively guide policy.

The result is clear: housing is acknowledged… but not treated as a structural priority. And this is the core issue. Housing is not just another sector.

It is a strategic nexus. Without adequate housing, there can be no health, no stable education, no real equality, no resilience to crises. Without affordable housing, cities fragment, inequalities deepen, and social tensions intensify.

In other words: without housing, the SDGs cannot be achieved.

Yet since the beginning of this century, policies have moved in a problematic direction. Housing has increasingly been treated as a commodity, left to market dynamics.

The consequences are visible: land speculation, exclusion of the most vulnerable, widespread precarity, and a global affordability crisis, both in the Global North and the Global South. The market alone cannot meet a fundamental human need. It must be supported by strong and deliberate public intervention.

We therefore need to scale up. In the post-2030 development agenda, a dedicated SDG on housing would:

• provide clear political visibility

• set measurable and structuring objectives

• guide international financing

• strengthen cooperation between states, cities, and stakeholders

• better reflect the diversity of ways of inhabiting

But beyond tools, this calls for a shift in perspective. Housing must be recognized not merely as a product, but as a condition of existence in the city.

We are at a turning point. The question is no longer simply how to produce housing. The real question is: who can still live in cities—and under what conditions?

Making housing a Sustainable Development Goal is a way to answer that question. It is about placing people back at the heart of the urban agenda. It is about enabling cities to become inclusive. It is a matter of justice. And today, it is a necessity. Without adequate housing, there can be neither sustainable cities nor equitable societies.

France, with its long-standing social housing policies supported by strong public intervention, provides a solid foundation. It also benefits from a structured urban policy framework, notably through urban renewal programmes that have recently been relaunched. This is complemented by effective fiscal incentives, housing allowances, and a favourable financing system based on employer contributions and the mobilization of household savings. Together, these mechanisms make France a European reference in the field of affordable housing.

With its representative institutions and a dynamic housing sector, France could, alongside other committed countries, play a leading role. It would be well positioned to support a global initiative for a dedicated SDG on housing, in collaboration with international institutions, including UN-Habitat.

This momentum could find an important milestone in the context of the tenth anniversary of Habitat III — Quito+10 — expected by the end of 2026 or early 2027.