Habitat for Humanity Argentina presented a poster on its advocacy efforts for social rental housing, which captured the attention of U.S. affiliates.

During Habitat on the Hill 2026, Habitat for Humanity International’s annual legislative conference, Argentina showcased its work within the global Home Equals campaign. This year’s gathering marked Habitat’s 50th anniversary and the 20th edition of the event in Washington, D.C. Nearly 500 housing advocates participated in three days of discussions, training sessions and networking opportunities. In this context, the material presented by Argentina drew strong interest from attendees who wanted to learn how the country addresses social rental housing.

A model to respond to precarious rental conditions

Many participants were eager to understand the challenges of precarious rental situations in Argentina. This interest made it possible to present the pilot project developed in the Estela de Esperanzas building. The initiative reclaims a vacant property in the City of Buenos Aires and transforms it into a building with nine apartments. It is designed for families currently living in hotels, rooming houses, tenement housing or informal settlements — environments where no formal rental contracts exist and where families face a constant risk of eviction and homelessness.

The project stands out for its comprehensive approach. It offers safe housing for three years and includes a gradual rent subsidy. It also reduces entry barriers such as property guarantees or formal income documentation. In addition, the initiative creates a support network in partnership with specialized organizations. This network promotes job training, income generation and the development of financial skills. Altogether, these components strengthen families’ capacity to save and support their transition toward adequate housing through formal renting or homeownership.

Programmatic advocacy

Through this project, Habitat for Humanity Argentina has become a reference organization in the field of social rental housing. In Buenos Aires, more than 30% of the population rents. Those who lack formal requirements face many obstacles. This reality highlights the need for models that can offer solutions at scale.

In this context, the organization has been working to promote public Social Rental Housing programs that would allow vulnerable populations to access adequate housing. In recent years, joint efforts with the National Government led to the inclusion of the National Social Rental Program in the now repealed Rental Law. In addition, national campaigns and the First Social Rental Housing Summit were carried out.

Next steps

Work is currently underway with local governments to implement the first public social rental program. At the same time, a private rental intermediation model is being developed to connect supply and demand that today remain outside the formal market.

This approach seeks to establish an economically sustainable and socially responsible model that will allow thousands of people to access market-rate rentals.

Global connections for shared challenges

The conversations held throughout the event showed how the Argentine project resonates with issues that also affect communities in the United States. For some attendees, it provided an opportunity to explore new strategies to address the housing deficit. For others, it revealed similarities between the pilot model and efforts already being implemented in their own cities.

This exchange confirmed that Habitat’s work in Argentina is both cross-cutting and replicable. It also highlighted the value of learning from other international experiences. Sharing approaches strengthens housing policies that must scale to meet today’s challenges.

Why advocate? One of our strategic lines is Advocacy. We aim to influence systems, policies, and attitudes to generate large-scale, long-term change. The challenge of housing access requires efforts from multiple stakeholders. We know we cannot solve it alone.

Our commitment is to people living in vulnerable housing conditions. That’s why our advocacy work is nonpartisan. We follow the path of dialogue with all actors in the housing ecosystem—government, private sector, and other organizations. We believe in building bridges and creating spaces for collaboration in the search for solutions.

“The risks associated with advocacy are far less than the cost of doing nothing.”

Currently, we focus on three areas of work. First, we advocate for the implementation of a social rental policy as a way for thousands of families to access housing, instead of paying to “rent” inadequate spaces. Second, we promote secure tenure as a fundamental right for families. We meet with key stakeholders to help families obtain legal title to their homes. Finally, we advocate for access to basic services in informal settlements.

Programmatic Advocacy

A study conducted in 2007 to assess the feasibility of actions in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA) revealed that in the southern part of the city, many families had sufficient income to rent formally, but access barriers—such as guarantors, pay stubs, and discrimination—prevented them from doing so, forcing them to pay similar amounts for inadequate accommodations like boarding houses, tenements, and hostels.

Based on this study, we developed a pilot social rental project in the La Boca neighborhood called Estela de Esperanzas. We reclaimed an unused city space and transformed it into nine apartments rented formally to families living in tenements, boarding houses, or hostels.

The project includes two key approaches:

• Three-year residency, our main focus, with a staggered subsidy to allow time for families to regain employment and income.
• Creation and operation of a support network for training, job placement, and income generation in partnership with specialized organizations. This way, families in the program gain tools to achieve safe and stable housing.

After this long journey, our work now focuses on driving systemic, practical, and policy changes to improve access to fair rental housing for more people.

Work with the National Housing Secretariat

After several months of work, on November 19, 2019, we organized an awareness event with the National Housing Secretariat titled Social Rental as State Policy. This meeting was part of a consultancy aimed at providing technical advice to the agency, which began in August.

This initiative aligns with the Secretariat’s interest in adopting Social Rental as a state policy—recognized as an additional pathway to accessing social housing in the country—and was key to the inclusion of the National Social Rental Program in the Rental Law (27,551), enacted in 2020.

The publication Social Rental as State Policy details the research findings, key aspects addressed, and recommendations developed.

Social Rental NOW

Social Rental NOW was a Habitat for Humanity Argentina awareness campaign launched in October 2022 to highlight the lack of access to formal rental housing.

In March 2020, the Rental Law was enacted, creating in Article 17 the National Social Rental Program, whose potential to address the issue remains unexplored. This policy, already tested in other countries in the region, could allow thousands of families to access adequate housing.

According to the law, the Ministry of Territorial Development and Habitat, through the Habitat Secretariat, was responsible for implementing the Social Rental Program. However, this never happened, and in December 2023, the Rental Law was repealed.

During the campaign, we gathered over 6,000 signatures calling for the program’s implementation, met with dozens of key stakeholders, and organized the first Social Rental Conference in Argentina.

Next Steps

As part of the global advocacy campaign Home Equals, since 2025 we have been working on three fronts:

• Together with the Buenos Aires City Government, we are developing a Social Rental program for the most vulnerable population. This will be the first public program of its kind in Argentina.
• We are engaging local governments across the country to advise them on implementing housing access policies and programs through social rental.
• We are creating a Social Real Estate Agency to act as an intermediary between supply and demand excluded from the formal rental market.