The digitization of the demand for social housing

Since the 1990s, the State and its partners have sought to improve the application process. Local IT processing systems have been developed in some departments on the joint initiative of social donors and local authorities. These local arrangements were maintained after the creation in 2009 of the national registration system, the management of which was entrusted in 2014 to a public interest group financed by the State and the Social Rental Housing Guarantee Fund. Over the years, this national system has become the receptacle for all applications for social housing, whether they are filed in paper form with lessors’ offices, which is still the majority of cases in 2019, or made online, since 2015, via a public portal. The digitisation of the demand for social housing has led to real progress that can still be expanded; However, there are weaknesses in digital demand management and the development of digital demand management will need to be strengthened to ensure that both users and those responsible for and partners in housing policy benefit fully.