Ii Cohabitac Conference The social impact of housing. Housing and health challenges for a structural response

World Habitat Day 2025, under the slogan proposed by the United Nations “Urban crisis response”, focuses on how cities and territories can respond to multiple crises that impact urban habitat: the climate emergency, conflicts, inequalities and structural vulnerabilities. In this framework, COHABITAC proposes to focus this year's reflection on the role of housing as a key infrastructure for health and well-being. The lack of decent, safe and stable housing or the fact of living in any of the situations described by the ETHOS classification as forms of homelessness, has a direct impact on the physical and mental health of people, and generates social and economic costs that fall on other pillars of the welfare state, such as the health system or social services. Despite this, housing is still not fully considered as a welfare policy, and this means that public responses are often fragmented, reactive or insufficient. This conference aims to be a space for shared reflection between professionals from the world of public health, welfare economics and the social housing sector to open a strategic debate on the role of housing in the response to social and urban crises and to lay the foundations for a future study on the impact of housing on health in our country. (Our mission is to combat residential exclusion through the promotion, rehabilitation, purchase, transfer and management of social rental housing with good practices. Currently, we manage around 5,000 homes, 10% of the social rental housing stock in Catalonia. The foundations offer comprehensive social support in areas such as economic, employment, training, socio-educational, mental health and community.)