Barcelona, Spain, October 16th / PRNewswire / -- HOWS Barcelona --- The Housing World Summit, this brand-new international conference on urban housing and affordable housing, is organized by the Barcelona City Council and Fira de Barcelona. It will take place from November 3rd to 5th at the Gran Via venue and will be held concurrently with Smart City Expo World Congress.

As the summit convenes, housing has become one of the decisive challenges faced by cities around the world. According to data from the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (_UN-Habitat), there are over 300 million people worldwide who are homeless, and another 3 billion live in conditions that are inadequate.

The Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Anacl, udia, and Rossbach, will be among the main speakers at HOWS Barcelona. Rossbach has over 20 years of experience in the field of housing and urban policy, with a particular focus on informal settlements and social housing. She will speak alongside Anne Hidalgo. Hidalgo is Paris' first female mayor and also the Global Ambassador for the Mayors' Climate and Energy Pact, advocating for affordable and sustainable housing as part of her agenda. Other guests attending the summit include Anna Minton, who is the author of the book "Big Capital: Who Is London For?" and a lecturer in architecture at East London University, with research focusing on the financialization of land, property, and housing. The summit will also invite Sindicat, de, Llogateres as speakers, as well as the President of the Catalan Federation of Housing Cooperatives, Jordi Galvez.

The Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, will chair the "Mayors' Roundtable on Housing," to discuss housing rights and policies being implemented around the world. The Mayors of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, Budapest, Gergely Kar to csony, Athens, Haris Doukas, and Atlanta, Andre Dickens, will also participate, in addition to the President of the European Commission's Housing Advisory Committee, Eamon Ryan. The event will also feature a "Mayors' Meeting on Housing," which is a closed-door working session bringing together mayors and senior housing officials from international cities.

Five Pillars to Address Common Challenges

The conference agenda revolves around five key themes: urban planning and land policy, housing regulation, social and affordable housing, architectural innovation, as well as renovation, adaptation, and reuse. Over the course of three days, discussions will cover land supply, rental market regulation affected by tourism and speculative pressures, cooperative housing models, new financing schemes, industrialized construction, and the restoration of existing housing stock, with the aim of finding practical pathways to build more affordable cities.