Emerald Impact emerges to combat housing problems with social support

Detecting vulnerability risks in social and affordable housing parks and implementing mechanisms to stop them. This is the objective of Emerald Impact, the first limited-profit operator in Spain specialized in the comprehensive management of social and affordable housing. Driven by Ingeus and We Rent, Emerald aims to professionalize the management of social housing from an integral perspective.

To pursue this objective, the two companies combine their experience in their respective sectors: We Rent as a manager of rental property portfolios, and Ingeus as a promoter of comprehensive support programs for the labor and residential spheres. From this alliance, Emerald presents itself as a manager of social housing parks that goes beyond the purely real estate scope, offering support to tenants in situations of vulnerability, with actions ranging from training to job searching.

"If we want a sustainable impact in the housing sector, it is necessary that, in addition to good real estate management, we have a social vision," highlights the co-CEO of Emerald Impact, Albert Sala. "That is social transformation," with ways for families who enter a situation of vulnerability to remain in their homes. As Sala points out, the company targets social and affordable housing because the families residing in them are often more prone to suffering situations of exclusion. "When we detect a situation of vulnerability, in coordination with the property, we make an intervention available to detect what the problem is and the intervention is activated depending on what it is," with actions such as support for finding work in case of unemployment. "What we do is, in coordination with the property, look for preventive and reactive mechanisms to address unforeseen situations for families," summarizes Sala, also operations director of Ingeus.

With this model —which Ingeus has been testing for eight years—, Emerald addresses both private and public social housing managers, "any operator who understands that incorporating this social vision will also result in a better outcome in the management of their portfolio." In this regard, Emerald is already in conversations with various administrations and actors such as impact funds. As an objective, it aims to reach 5,000 managed homes by 2027, always with a social perspective that moves away from "aggressive management in terms of margins and profits."

Thus, the new company starts from a "clear social sensitivity" that combines technical efficiency, sustainability, and support for families. In this efficiency, We Rent plays a fundamental role, according to Sala, and that is because this management requires "very high technological capabilities" that are embodied in We Rent, and that allow monitoring the housing stock in real time, to know everything from defaults to maintenance tasks and incidents.

The alliance has been forged at a time when access to housing has become one of the main structural challenges. At the state level, nearly four million households allocate more than 30% of their income to housing payments, and only 1.5% of the housing stock is public. In this vein, social housing needs in Spain stand at 1.8 million for the next decade.

It is in this context that Emerald Impact emerges. The company wants to contribute to the response to this situation from the conviction that access to housing must go "beyond the physical space," according to the company's president, Gregorio Cascante: "It must incorporate social, educational, labor, and health support to truly improve the living conditions of families."

"That is why we propose an integral management of the social and affordable housing stock, capable of generating well-being and opportunities for progress," adds Cascante. With this objective, they commit to starting from a "deep knowledge of the families and communities" with which they work, carrying out continuous monitoring to detect situations of vulnerability and anticipate them to activate support measures and guarantee residential stability.

"We want to demonstrate that it is possible to manage housing efficiently and profitably without losing the social purpose"

"We want to demonstrate that it is possible to manage housing efficiently and profitably without losing its social purpose," remarks Paco Campos, co-CEO of Emerald Impact, which has been constituted as a Society of Benefit and Common Interest (SBIC) to guarantee its positive and measurable impact and reinvestment in its purpose: to transform affordable housing into a tool for social development.