Implementing community gardens can be highly beneficial for a city not only for environmental purpose but also for social ones: to fight social exclusion, and bring neighbours together, at the same time as organisation education activities for children around them. This is what Vilnius has done while transferring the Good Practice of Rome, in ‘sleeping districts’, with training for gardeners and set-up of adequate urban management schemes.

Lithuania’s capital is particularly green, with 44% of its territory dedicated to forests, parks and squares. However, while family garden allotments persist from Soviet times, understanding of shared community gardens is still limited.

The municipality owns various public spaces, including grounds of schools and kindergartens, but most vacant space in Vilnius is privately or state-owned. This has challenged the municipality’s capacity to promote urban agriculture.

The shared urban garden initiatives that have existed so far have done so without city support. Meanwhile, most community groups lack the funding and permanent staff necessary to commit to gardening projects.

RU:RBAN gave Vilnius the knowledge to promote urban gardening as a way to fight social exclusion, and bring neighbours - even in high-rise ‘sleeping districts’ - together.

The ULG focused on a key component of Rome’s practice – a clear set of regulations for communities to know how and where to start an urban garden. It was not a process of copy-paste, but of understanding and adapting.

Nevertheless, thanks to the efforts of the group, the City Council approved a new set of rules and regulations for urban gardening in March 2021. In addition, the municipality released a guide to urban gardening which gained national media attention as part of a broader environmental awareness drive.

The practice developed by Vilnius following the experience of Rome is based strongly on environmental protection and awareness by developing urban gardens. Its social aspect is key as these gardens are actually “community” gardens, with all well-known and documented benefits for neighourhoods as groups and as individuals, such as mental health, socialisation, skills development etc. In particular trainings and sharing of seeds can have wider impacts on the local economy.

A new URBACT Local Group (ULG) was set up including gardening enthusiasts, NGOs, schools, the municipality, and the Environment Ministry.

The members of Vilnius’ ULG benefited collectively and within their own specific fields from the experience and ideas of Rome and the other partner cities. This included gardeners sharing seeds and participating in “Gardenizer” trainings. It also involved “totally fascinated” city planners learning how Rome developed urban farming at a huge scale, right down to the smallest details of their financing model.

ULG members also gained valuable knowledge about new communication tools, including through trainings in Riga where they learnt to use tools such as ‘vox pops’ and understand the value of their story for others.

The Municipality has also started a new strategic long-term program - CITY+ - aimed at recreating a sense of community in the former soviet districts. One of the important aspects is to create a feeling of ownership by allowing citizens to have their own yard and therefore an opportunity to create their small urban gardens.

With around 60% of the city’s population living in these buildings, Vilnius’ new urban garden trend looks set to continue.

Vilnius implemented the practice from Rome by starting with one existing community garden and built from there. Gradually, the number of urban gardens in Vilnius started to grow. Furthermore, the model is now formally included in the city’s urban development policies.

Another interesting aspect was that they linked the development of community gardens with ecological education and vegetable growing in kindergartens - an activity appreciated by partner cities during their study visit.

Solving land ownership issues will remain a key challenge for the spread of urban gardening, requiring ongoing dialogue with private and state owners. To free up more land, Vilnius will also start discussions with the National Land Authority to allow communities temporary use of state-owned land for their urban garden initiatives.

As for its own land, the city will now be proposing the option of including an urban garden whenever it discusses green area renovation plans with communities. The municipality also expects to continue making further improvements to relevant legal procedures to facilitate urban gardens.

MAC proposes a series of activities with the aim of redeveloping the urban environment and, at the same time, fighting poverty in the Monterusciello district in Pozzuoli, where the current problems of the social context are combined with a difficult urban environment, characterized by isolation, anonymity and decay of public spaces. The overall objective of the MAC project focuses on the residents' poor economic conditions such as low income and unemployment, the lack of business activities, large abandoned green areas and unused public buildings, as well as a lack of quality relationships and trust between citizens and the administration. Through a process of economic, entrepreneurial, and social development, MAC is creating a new Agro-Urban Landscape based on an interconnection of urban areas and agricultural land. About fifty hectares of Municipal owned open areas are transformed into farmland, developed with the innovative techniques of permaculture to spearhead an economic process and urban growth as a means to combat poverty. The project is based on 4 four pillars: the launch of agricultural activities based on the principles of permaculture and organic urban agriculture; the improvement of the urban environment; professional training; encouraging entrepreneurship and employment.

Urban agriculture is going to offer job opportunities, training, and quality products, while the city will benefit from renewed common spaces and green areas. Along with architectural, urban, landscape and agricultural investments, professional training courses.  The MAC project has put in action a strategy coordinated from a new Agro-Urban Center, which will increase the municipality role in the neighbourhood involving the residents in better identifying local issues and solutions. It has transformed thirty hectares of unused areas through the implementation of innovative agriculture while promoting work in the area  and developing new skills. The project has also developed the local economy through the Laboratory of Ethical Production and Rural Marketing, trained new innovative business enterprises and supported new start-up companies which will be hosted within the Business Incubator Centre.  It developed the Km0 local market through a network with other local producers, hence improving the current open-air week markets. Mac has also acted on the quality of the urban spaces such as architecture interventions and activated spaces within the existing and un-used public buildings for the laboratories and the Agro Urban Centre. Last but not least, it has provided areas for events, a bike path, walkways and seating areas, all to be set along the agriculture areas overlooking the greenery. 

Through the construction of the AGRO URBAN CENTER (AUC) the MAC project installs on the territory, right in the central square of Monterusciello, a space of continuous communication between the municipality, the residents and the key local actors for the identification of local urban problems and the construction of solutions. Participation constitutes a foundation of the present and future actions of the MAC. The principle of local rooting is considered essential for defining co-design processes that lead to the realization of projects accepted by the local community and therefore sustainable. Together with the AUC, the MAC project developed the Consulta Urbana. This is a tool to better structure the process of sharing choices and to give a renewed centrality of the territorial requests within the decision-making processes.

Agriculture, and therefore Urban Agriculture, operated at a considerable scale and organized through professional work and means within an urban context, is an economic activity that can continue to be carried out even in periods where many productive activities must to be stopped, undeniably (e.g. the COVID 19), it becomes crucial for the well-being of the whole community: a key resilient economic activity. The contemporaneity of urban planning must look to a new green deal, in this sense, solutions based on nature, and in their integration with the training and production sectors, together with an innovative and shared conception of public spaces, as promoted within the MAC project, make a difference in the quality of life and in the development opportunities offered to citizens.

The MAC is a composite project in which the theme of urban agriculture (UA) defines the plot of a regenerative path that includes several components such as the redevelopment and re-functionalization of the public space, the requalification of public lands abandoned for years and their transformation in a productive asset, but also, of an enlarged public space: The community space. It also includes the redefinition of a cultural landscape: a modernist new town that returns to dialogue with those spaces and functions that it had cancelled with its birth in addition to the recreation and reinforcement of a local community disillusioned with public action, which begins to interact with the project, when the first results are seen. Lastly, it consists of the training and creation of job opportunities for many young people from Monterusciello, those most affected by the problem of stagnant unemployment.

At Fives, the closure of the metallurgic “Fives Cail Babcock” company in 2001 has been a tremendous shock for the population. Once carried up by the industrial fleuron, the neighbourhood has dramatically declined. With more than 20% unemployment rate (mostly long term); half of the population lives under the poverty level. Young people (half of population is under 30) can meet little job opportunity in the surroundings.

To reverse negative trends of urban poverty in the deprived neighbourhood of Fives and as part of a larger urban brownfield regeneration development, the project aims at (re)introducing productive activities centred on food. At the heart of the brownfield, a building of 2050 m2 has been renovated to host an innovative combination of activities in the fields of urban agriculture, production, culinary transformation and catering. 

The project has been able to use food-related activities to seek and leverage against urban poverty. It has also developed prefiguration as a tool to testing a future Food Court in real-life.

Gentrification process is addressed from the start. Also, the existing population is the subject of special attention and is identified as the main target of the activities deployed. This project has integrated all the beneficiaries – and related partners – to co-create the most suitable building and activities for them all.

The inhabitants of the FIVES neighbourhood are struggling with the following main issues: seclusion, lack of social interactivity, health problem, lack of training and job opportunities and loss of pride.

A central food hall has been created and mix cooking, productive and food-services activities: A “ Community kitchen” inviting neighbourhood inhabitants to join workshops and events; a professional kitchen hosting an Incubator to food projects and solidary caterer for skills development; a food Court to meet and gather around sustainable local meals and festivals; an urban farm combining training for agricultural job and pedagogy for citizens.

The project gathers 14 partners combining local authorities in charge of the future of the site (Ville de Lille) as well as in charge of social policies (CCAS), as well as the metropolitan area (Métropole Européenne de Lille) – together with researchers to support investigation in urban farming (ISA/Yncréa Hauts-de France) and in the evaluation (Maison Européenne des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société), and stakeholders who are familiar with working with precarious publics («Les sens du Goût», Fédération du Nord du Secours Populaire Français, La Sauvegarde du Nord). Other partners supported the activities around jobs and skills (Maison de l’Emploi de Lille, Lomme, Hellemmes (MDE) and A table citoyens !/Baluchon) as well as media activities (Rencontres Audiovisuelles) and IT development activities (Le Centre d’Innovation des Technologies sans Contact). Finally, EPARECA/ANCT, a public /private company has been involvement for the purchase and management of the site.

The project was managed via a collective governance model involving all the partners. The design of the future Food hall was co-created with the local residents and participants to the activities. 
 

The project was prototyped during 3 years at a temporary site, L’Avant-Goût de la cuisine commune, to allow residents and stakeholders to get to know the future project ; provide local NGOs and residents with facilities and material to cook, produce and process food; provide inhabitants with an open space for social activities several days a week, and, and develop a regulatory framework adapted to the objectives of the project. The learnings fed into the design for the future site, “Chaud Bouillon !”.

The results of the first 2 years of the project (from sept 2017 to June 2019), located at L’Avant-Goût, are: 15 000 users of the site; 23 events for the general public; 120 000 visitors during the summer; 500 cooking workshops; more than 100 partners involved.
 

TAST’in FIVES has aimed to address an EU level priority, that is at the core of the Europe 2020 strategy and one of the 5 targets for 2020: 20 million less people at risk of poverty in 2020 compared to 2010. While it is clear today that this EU target will not be reached, cities are still working hard to combat poverty and social exclusion at local level. The solution proposed here combines a mix of relevant and complementary stakeholders in using food as a leverage against poverty in a dedicated building. Other cities, as well as job centres, or anti-poverty NGOs, might be interested in transferring part of or the entire project. The project is indeed quite adaptable as it is co-constructed with the knowledge of the NGOs on their beneficiaries and the beneficiaries themselves, together with a learning process and transformation for all.

In the context of high poverty, exclusion and the increasing number of empty housing units, accentuated by the crisis, the Vilafranca (ES) Inclusion programme deals with the renovation and rehabilitation of vacant housing while reusing them for social purposes. 
Bringing together the municipality, social actors, NGOs and house owners, the programme is built on a multiannual approach. It uses the renovation process for occupational training and boosting employment among the people risking social exclusion or long-time poverty. 
So far, more than 250 houses have been renovated and offered on preferential lease to poor or homeless families, and 500 persons have gained professional skills through the training programmes. The Vilafranca Inclusion practice has already been recognised by Un Habitat Europe and the Pi i Sunyer Foundation. 

Rehabilitate vacant homes and reuse them with a social purpose • Use the process of rehabilitation for occupational training and boosting employment of unemployed. • Provide homes to families and / or people with a low income and on a situation of emergency residential risk. • Improve housing park standards: prevent the progressive deterioration of buildings and parts of the city. • Reduction of empty housing. • Using housing as a tool for socio-educational work. • Promote employability.

 Vilafranca Inclusion exemplifies the three pillars of the URBACT principles: Horizontal integration: incorporates the cross-work of various municipal services for the analysis and implementation in different phases. Carried out in the period 2013/2015, it has a direct relation to the tasks performed at the C.R.I.T. (Resource Centre for Inclusion and Employment) aimed at people at risk of exclusion. It deals with the subjects of: urban planning, improving degraded areas of the city; environmental, upgrading homes to optimal levels of energy efficiency; new economies creation, area of housing rehabilitation, specialized training; promotion of cooperative economics, etc. Vertical integration: its development involves promoters and beneficiaries. There are three lines of work in parallel: A) Urban Planning: properties to be rehabilitated are evaluated, designed and valued. Also, private foundations, the Town Hall itself and financial institutions can provide housing to be included in the rehabilitation programme. B) Social Services: selection of participants and the design of the employment plans. C) Training and Employment: training options. From there begins the execution phase of the work, and training of participants is done through a company (cooperative) of social integration. Territorial integration: rehabilitating housing in degraded areas helps the greater integration of the whole town, reducing the risk of having marginal areas.

Among those involved has woven a network of co-operation. Whilst Caritas supports the training of the participants in the project, the insertion cooperative insert Nou Set does the contracts. Moreover, the Town Hall, through C.R.I.T. manages the program, partly funded by the Diputació de Barcelona. The partnership also extends to the active participation of property owners and end users. Apart from the three lines of action involved in the project (Social Services, Town Planning, and Training and Employment) parallel tasks of development are established.

The impact of Vilafranca Inclusion is multiple and has benefited its citizenship as a result of the change that occurred in the mechanics of the programme from 2012, when - as a result of the economic crisis - rehabilitation and social integration were put at the same level as axes. Since its implementation in 1992, it has allowed the family core to have a regular income, it has standardised the employment status of participating workers, has allowed us to train them in professional skills, and also, significantly, it has equipped them with the capacity to be able to find a job in the present circumstances of the labour market. Otherwise, participation has been opened to members of the family who are unemployed. The profile of participants and attended has changed in line with social changes experienced in the types of families: for example, in 2015, 84 families were assisted (a total of 243 people), of which 49% were single-parent families and 42% of users were under 16 years of age. 250 dwellings have been rehabilitated, of which the Town Hall still manages 90 through Social Housing. The rest - leased to the town council - have already been returned to their owners. • People trained: approximately 500 (data from 1992) • Families inserted: 50 since 2013.

From its beginnings in 1992, the practice has been adapted to the current social context, characterised by the strong economic crisis that has forced many municipalities to adapt expenditures allocated to social issues. Vilafranca implemented "Vilafranca Inclusion" aiming to rehabilitate and reuse dwellings for social purposes. The 2012 programme is reoriented and focused on the social and labour inclusion of unemployed people and families at risk of exclusion. The impact of the practice is satisfactory and strengthens their impact on policy and management of the municipality. We believe that this course of action can be useful and interesting for any European city facing these issues.

Mouans-Sartoux is a city of 10,000 inhabitants located on the French Riviera. Since 1998, the city has been connecting food, health and environmental issues. To overcome the lack of a local organic food offer, a municipal farm was created, and two farmers hired to grow vegetables for school canteens, thus meeting 85% of the needs of the three local schools (1,000 meals per day). Public procurement rules were changed so that local producers could answer calls for bids.
Since then, the city has been serving daily meals in its schools that are 100% local and organic. Developing this approach, Mouans-Sartoux is now working on local agri-food systems and education to extend the initiative at national, European and international levels.

This initiative offers multiple benefits:

• 100% organic meals, by a progressive increase of organic sourcing (adaptation of the public procurement policy) with no extra costs;
• Dramatic reduction of food waste by a set of simple solutions. The economic savings made it possible to offer 100% organic food, served in the canteens at a constant cost. Public procurement rules were reoriented towards local products, using a set of criteria focusing on food quality, environment preservation and cost;
• Creation of a municipal farm to deliver local organic vegetables to the canteens;
• Employment protection: two municipal farmers collaborate with cooks, a nutritionist, managerial staff and elected representatives. Short supply chains and local consumption have increased employment;
• Shift to a healthy diet: food quality, nutritional standards (PNNS), providing fresh, seasonal and balanced non-industrial products, local and organic, cooked on-site from raw products. An effort is put into vegetable proteins in the diet, a savings that enables the purchase of better quality meat;
• The MEAD (House for Sustainable Food and Education) aims at developing a set of projects related to municipal agri-food policy;
• Behavioural change: an Observatory of Sustainable Food was created to follow up on actions and families’ food and consumption habits and evolution of their practices;
• Sustainable land use: to deal with urban sprawl, the local urban planning strategy protected 112 ha. of agricultural land, thus tripling the area dedicated to farming.

Horizontal integration: by supporting smart land use, organic production and local agri-food systems development, the project has a strong environmental dimension. It also has an economic dimension through the creation of jobs (2 jobs at the municipal farm, 2 jobs at the local grocery store), and a social dimension by supporting a "Jardin de Cocagne" as part of a national network: an organic farm that employs 50 people offering social integration through economic activity.
The other social aspect is the access to sustainable food in the canteens for every pupil, who pays a price adapted to his or her parents’ income. Shifting to 100% organic with no price increase can also be considered as sustainable. Moreover, educating children in nutrition, health, food origin and products, fair trade, etc., is a core action of the project.
Territorial integration: the project is well integrated in the overall strategy of the city since it manages its own public services (water supply, canteens, farming, etc.), giving autonomy in decision making.
The project adopts a transversal approach and shared governance through the collaboration of many internal services such as youth and education (through animation, school catering, health, prevention and sustainable development sectors), environmental services (managing the municipal farm), the city urban planning office (especially for the agricultural land area project aiming to install new farmers), with crucial cooperation among all stakeholders.

The project triggers empowerment. Many citizen initiatives have emerged, like local grocery stores (Boomerang: unpacked-food shop, MCE: Fair-trade NGO), community gardens, local groups working on sustainable development actions (Collectif Mouansemble), Incredible Edible, etc. People are particularly involved in the city's activities, and there are many project leaders.
Multi-level governance: through the MEAD and the Observatory for Sustainable School Catering steering committees, the project associates a wide range of actors in the field of agriculture, health, environment and sustainable development who take part in the governance of the whole good practice: consular chambers (Chambre d’Agriculture), NGOs and national networks of the organic sector (Agribio06, Un Plus Bio), public health NGOs (CODES, CRES: regional and local health committees), decentralised state services (DRAAF: Ministry of Agriculture Regional Service), universities and research institutes (INRA Avignon: agronomy, Côte d’Azur university, LASCAUX: research on food access and food laws, ITAB: organic farming research institute, etc.).
Being part of the AGRI-URBAN project, local stakeholders are associated as members and partners of the URBACT Local Group (AGRI-URBAN): citizens, parents’ associations, private sector (cooperatives, NGOs, farmers), multi-scaled administrative and educational institutions, etc. By changing their eating behaviour, parents as well as the local population are significant stakeholders of the project.

As a result of this initiative, a circular economy approach was developed. Projects were born thanks to the change of mentalities (i.e. direct marketing of food goods such as AMAP (Community Supported Agriculture), and small local grocery stores like Boomerang). Jobs linked to local agri-food systems were created (production, retail, sales, organisation). The demand for quality local products is high.
Other results involve:

• Environmental protection: zero pesticides, increase of biodiversity by organic crop production and use of melliferous plants that attract pollinators, short low carbon supply chain;
• Agriculture: the Local Urban Plan Strategy has tripled the agricultural area, allowing the installation of an organic farmer who sells his production locally. In 2016, the municipal farm produced 24 tons of organic vegetables for schools, covering 85% of the requirements;
• Food waste: 80% decrease in canteens, 30g/meal are now wasted instead of 150g (national average);
• The observatory: public health and food diets have evolved. Surveys done in 2013 and 2016 revealed that the proportion of families in Mouans-Sartoux who eat 100% organic food has increased from 6% to 13% (in France, less than 2% eat 100% organic, BVA survey 2014). In 2016, 85% of the sample declared that their food practices, behaviour and way of consumption had changed. 31% of parents buy at the producer’s once a week (vs. 19% at national level), 20% weekly at the farmers’ market, and 99% of parents are satisfied with the city’s food policy.

Mouans-Sartoux has also improved its own practice on the following objectives identified in the city’s improvement plan at the beginning of BioCanteens Transfer Network, further involving citizens and local stakeholders in the city’s food project "Citizen feeding the town" (Citoyen Nourrit la Ville) in 2020. In this project, citizens are invited to carry out a participatory mapping of unused public and private lands with the view to turn them into family plots self-managed by small groups of participants, who commit to redistribute a share of their yields to the city’s social grocery. More importantly, a group of citizens was gathered to ensure smooth project steering, and to progressively raise their awareness on a wide diversity of food-related policy topics (ex. Food sovereignty, preservation of agricultural lands, food poverty etc.) beyond the issue of market gardening. This group will become the first basis and test-bed of Mouans-Sartoux’s future local food policy council. Taking stock of the relative failure of Mouans-Sartoux ‘s ULG (progressive disengagement of participants because of an overt-intellectual approach), the MEAD team opted to support people’s mobilisation into the city’s food governance through a progressive, flexible and concrete manner. A study to better understand the eating and purchase habits of the social grocery’s beneficiaries was carried out enabling to better adapt the service delivered by the city’s centre for social action (upcoming organisation of workshops of sustainable food, better (more attractive) presentation of vegetables on food stalls, partnerships with local organic suppliers to improve the quality of food distributed...) Increasing action-research activities and partnerships with academia, research centres and relevant practitioners.

(Pending approval in June 2021): Application to a call for project at national level (Programme National pour l’Alimentation) to carry out an action-research project on how to ensure the coordination of different local authorities’ food project at different governance levels (city, group of cities/metropolitan areas, département). The project’s hypothesis to be verified through 4 case-studies (City of Marseille/Métropole Aix-Marseille- Provence/Bouches du Rhône, Mouans-Sartoux/Alpes Maritimes, Plouguerneau, Epinal) is to show that a food project needs to be developed at each level of local governance, that there is not one better level to coordinate them than the others, but that coordination is needed to build a common narrative and objectives, despite possible different actions.

(Approved in June 2021) : A research project will be launched in the second half of 2021 for 2 years in collaboration with the University Hospital of Nice to measure the impact of the sustainable canteens project onto children health (epigenetics study).

(Also relevant for the point below) Greater dissemination of the city’s food project and know-how at regional, national and international levels

Over 2.5 years, Mouans-Sartoux has led the BIOCANTEENS network, transferring its practice to 6 other cities: LAG Pays des Condruses (Belgium), Vaslui (Romania), Trikala (Greece), Rosignano Marittimo (Italy), Torres Vedras (Portugal) and Troyan (Bulgaria). You can, in particular, check Troyan’s Good practice here. The approach was based on 8 modules which adaptable to each city’s reality: a municipal farm platform, kitchen micro good practices, organic demand and offer, food governance, food sovereignty vision, open dialogues and outreach, working with public procurement, and food education micro good practices The modules are all available as handbook on the URBACT website. Mouans-Sartoux also shared its practice more widely:

• At national level:
  • via the Cantines durables – Territoires Engagés, French transfer of the practice of Mouans-Sartoux, making it a French BIOCANTEENS network;
  • via a training programme called Management of Sustainable Food Projects for Territorial Communities, in order to adapt and develop projects according to each city's individual situation, together with the University of Côte d’Azur; and,
  • as a significant stakeholder of the national community network Un Plus Bio.
• at European/international level:
  • as a potential leader of a follow-up URBACT BICOANTEENS network;
  • as a founding member of European Club Organic Food territories, European follow-up of Un Plus Bio
  • as a member of the International Organic Food System Programme network; and,
  • as a signatory of the Glasgow food declaration

The City of Rome developed a participatory urban gardening project. The aim of the project is two-fold: it fights social exclusion and poverty and allows brownfield recovery.
Working with NGOs, citizens, disadvantaged people and minorities, the city uses the urban and suburban agriculture as a means to improve governance processes. Alongside employment policy, social and intercultural dialogue has a pre-eminent role to play. The importance of other factors such as housing, health, culture and communication should also be acknowledged.

The good practice contributes to the improvement of the governance processes by connecting different competencies and municipal offices such as social, environment, urban planning and innovation departments. UPA is an innovative practice that could provide a governance model for sustainable development, environmental protection, brownfield recovery and reuse, social cohesion and poverty fighting (i.e. immigrants, elderly, disabled people, AIDS and Alzheimer’s patients, prisoners, etc.).

Rome (IT) has the widest urban agriculture area in Europe. Its agricultural landscape is immersed in a network of archaeological sites, monuments, villas and farmhouses. Green areas are about 86,000 hectares, 67% of its entire territory. While most green areas are located outside the urban perimeter, several agricultural corridors connect the periphery with the city centre of Rome. This unique feature distinguishes Rome from other European cities that are characterised by a division between urban and rural areas. Rome thus offers a unique potential for further development: citizens are now developing permaculture systems and producing healthier organic food for self-consumption. The aforementioned projects' approach to tackling urban challenges is the result of a territorial cooperation process, involving different partners of the Mediterranean Basin under ENPI CBC MED Programme: the Royal Botanic Garden and the National Department for Forests and Agriculture (Jordan), the city of Mahdia (Tunisia), the metropolitan area of Barcelona and the City of Rome.

Participatory mechanisms for communities and citizens in the new UPA policies/actions allow the former groups a greater capacity for action and decision making on Urban Governance: Urban Agriculture management strategies herein are oriented towards participatory citizenship. Stakeholder like local NGOs and horticulture associations did contribute to the set-up of the Regulation of urban gardens (City Council Resolution, July 2015) activating local representatives of such communities in a process of social and intercultural integration. Socialisation among different communities is the core of this activity.

The previous experience allowed the City of Rome to experiment the application of the Regulations of urban gardens of Rome approved in 2015, through 3 pilot projects assigned to different non-profit, multipurpose associations in charge of needy and disadvantaged people. At present, approx. 300 people are direct beneficiaries of the parcels. Dozens of associations and thousands of citizens are involved in the pilot projects, and awareness was raised among municipal officers and citizens. The Regulation of the Urban gardens of Rome (City Resolution of July 2015 or “Regolamento degli orti urbani”) is to be considered an extremely important outcome as a governance tool. According to the “Regolamento”, the use of pesticides, chemical fertilisers and GMO seeds are prohibited. The sustainability of the UPA pilot project is ensured by the commitment of the City of Rome (i.e. the “Regolamento”), the Districts, the associations as "managers" of the pilots, the thousands of citizens involved, and by the coordination with a network of urban gardens and other local and national organisations.

Rome led the RU:RBAN Network over 2.5 years, transferring its practices to 6 other cities: Vilnius (Lithuania), Caen (France), Krakow (Poland), Thessaloniki (Greece), Loures (Portugal), and Coruna (Spain). You can, in particular, check Vilnius’s Good practice here. The approach was based on the three components/elements of the Good practice: capacity building in organizing urban gardens, Inspiring and training people to manage urban gardens (Gardeners) and Urban gardens governance & regulations. The network’s outputs can be found on the URBACT website. RUR:BAN was also reloaded with a new Transfer Network in 2021-2022.

#genera_azioni is a good practice in a rural area of Montichiari (IT) that has been deeply affected by the economic crisis and characterised by a diffused vulnerability. #genera_azioni focuses on families as the principal victims of crisis. It tackles poverty (economic difficulty, lack of relationships, unemployment, social vulnerability) with a generative, community-based model of welfare.
#genera_azioni enables the community to deal with people’s difficulties. It connects people, stories and experiences to develop integrated solutions. Being composed of four pillars that support each community – housing, work, community bonds and youth – it enables the community members to take care of themselves by combining their forces and sharing their know-how.

#genera_azioni acts on the community by focusing on the four nerve centres of many communities: home, work, the future of young people and the development of a strong sense of community and ideas launched by citizens. The hinge of the whole activities is the “community point”. Community points are places for people to meet, relate and take part in improving activities. They rise in strategic places to attract the members of the community and are driven by a facilitator, whose task is to promote mutual aid among citizens, families, workers, and to connect the people with enterprises and personal services. Around these places the different actions and programs develop. In particular: experiences of co-housing and housing-sharing with fragile families and social guardianship, the creation of a corporate network and of employability support measures, promotion of experiences of school-work through a local catalogue of proposals (to date more than 60 available positions) and extracurricular activities for young people, a Start-Up Plan developing ideas of citizens. All these actions follow an integrated approach to promote inclusion.

#genera_azioni fits with sustainable development because it promotes a new kind of welfare and a different idea of “improved quality of life”, based on the importance of relationships and sharing resources, information and time. The project contributes to reduce inequality and social exclusion, creating new opportunities for people who normally can’t participate in the normal activities of the community and promoting meeting to become aware about their rights, abilities and possibilities. Our good practice also favours an integrated and participative approach to tackle social frailty: the project’s actions are implemented thanks to a network composed of institutions, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, volunteers and citizens. So the main actor that faces the challenge is the community itself, and it benefits from the added value of the network: to give complex answers to complex problems. Such actions don’t create new services for people to help, but enable and urge the recipients to take action, promoting a model of welfare based on mutual aid.

The project is characterised by a mixed governance system, comprising both public entities and locally involved non-profits organizations; this makes the stakeholders have a relevant role in the project development, as well as in its implementation. Furthermore, it treats a community-opened system that welcomes and supports the ideas and the participation of unconventional subjects and citizens. More than 50 entities take part in the welfare design process. Look at our governance on “Studio di fattibilità” attached.

#genera_azioni is a three-year project, now in its second year of activity. Currently, six Community Points have been opened in the district of implementation (District 9 in the Province of Brescia), reaching 530 individuals and 104 organisations (institutes, associations, cooperatives, parishes, informal groups) and developing 15 laboratories. Referring to the integrated plan about home, in 2016 the first social condominium experience was started, and the work of the facilitators has determined the subscription of 14 leases and three paths of cohabitation for frail families. Concerning work, three thematic laboratories have been implemented, and the activity of connection between supply and demand of labour produced six apprenticeships and 100 cognitive interviews. The project also achieved good results in actions directed toward young people: the youth involved around the project have been enabled to develop four laboratories for other young people, and took part in nine events co-projected on the territory. The students of the district’s high schools also gained access to a catalogue of 60 offers for work-study experiences with qualified enterprises. Thanks to the call for ideas #genera_idee, six ideas for innovative projects for community purposed by citizen were financed with a contribution of €9,500

This good practice would be interesting for other cities around Europe, and especially for the small ones in rural areas: social frailty is a very diffused situation in Europe, whose population was hit hard by the economic crisis, and whose traditional welfare measures are now in trouble. This uneasiness is stronger and stronger in the rural areas, where the proposal of services is narrower than big cities, and where community bonds are weak. The good practice purposed by #genera_azioni addresses the problem with a simple but innovative strategy, supporting the development of a more sensitive community, in which people don’t passively rely on the welfare state for the management of social challenges, but perform preventive actions. Strengthening social bonds with a view to preventing fragility and exclusion, as well as mutual aid within the community, sets the stage for a significant improvement in the quality of life in that community.

The problems of ageing, young people moving away and urban poverty are huge challenges in Kazincbarcika, one of Hungary's most underdeveloped regions. As a solution, a club of elderly people volunteered to help the young. The pensioners set up a series of workshops for kids from disadvantaged groups in a segregated district of the town. Based on their success, the events were extended to the whole town, coordinated by the family assistance service. Today, two to four people provide regular afterschool education one to three times a week for children aged 7 to 16. As a result, pupils are seeing improvements in their school performance and personal development. 15-25-year-olds can now also take part in “value transfer events”. What started as a small initiative has now led to cooperation between generations and local communities, which are included in the five basic principles of the town’s creative urban action plan “Kolorcity”.

In 2011, a new community house was realised under the integrated social, environmental rehabilitation programme in Herbolya, a segregated district of Kazincbarcika. The programmes and services had to be created, and people living there and NGOs of the town were involved in this work by the family assistance service of the municipality. Consequently, members of “Idővár” Pensioner Culture Club voluntarily started holding creative workshops connected to major celebrations and school holidays for disadvantaged children living in the district. Due to the success of the programme, the events have become regular since 2013 and spread to the whole town. The members of the club, mostly ex-teachers (coordinated by family assistance service workers), voluntarily dealt with 7- to 15-year-old disadvantaged children, mostly Roma, who had learning difficulties and were at risk of dropping out of school. Since then, the popularity of the events has been growing, and they are not limited to doing homework or rectifying insufficient knowledge, but they also provide mutual, confidential discussions and games. In this way, these events not only help the school career of children with learning deficiencies but also contribute to the well-being essential for their further studies and employment. It occurs in such a way that the retired generation voluntarily utilise their practical experience, knowledge through keeping children occupied, while spending their lives actively.

The cooperation of the older and younger generations, which developed from the revitalisation plan of the socially and environmentally deteriorated town district, was included in the integrated town development strategy. The programme, realised in 2011-12, included revitalising the town environment and public utilities, creating indoor and outdoor community spaces and providing educational, social and employment programmes. The initial, occasional programmes started by pensioners in the segregated districts became permanent and were extended to all residents of the town, especially disadvantaged children. In the programme, the local family assistance service coordinated between civilians, who give helping hands, and the involved target groups, namely disadvantaged families and children. Due to its success, the “Idővár” Pensioner Culture Club has extended its activities: it organises casual events for disabled people; a multiple-round settlement knowledge and historical competition was organised for primary and secondary schoolchildren. In 2014, a so-called value-transfer programme was launched on topics that youngsters are interested in (e.g. partner selection, celebrations, volunteering) together with La Cosa Nostra Ensemble, a youth organisation for the 15- to 25-year-old residents of the town. It is important to note that the pensioner club is not a legally registered organisation, and its members work on a totally voluntary basis.

In the beginning, the family assistance service of the municipality worked with local NGOs while the community program in Herbolya district was being planned. They jointly shaped the services and programs of the community house. Later, the family assistance service and “Idővár” Club planned the daily, afterschool educational events together. The family assistance service recruits children with special needs to the events via its connections to families living in difficult conditions. Kids like attending the event, where in response to their needs, confidence-building discussions take place, games are played, and, later, children are helped to rectify their learning defects. The cooperation with youngsters, schools and local youth organisations is independent of the municipal organisation.

After the initial uncertainties, the events held in Herbolya district were visited by more and more residents (80 to 150 people per event). After completing the pilot project, four to five events were organised a year. The events did not need to be promoted as children became familiar with the programme. The regular afternoon events organised in the city centre were launched in 2013. In the beginning, there were only a few attendees, but the occasions became more and more popular: in 2016, 600 afterschool events were held, and about 25 children attended regularly. As a result of the events, the youngster’s personalities have developed, their self-confidence has improved, their mental problems have been dealt with, and their school performance has improved substantially. (The number of class repetition cases has decreased.) Many of the youths see the educators as their substitute grannies, who, by being role models and by being together have a substantial impact. Two to four teachers lead the afternoon programmes one to three days a week. The success of the program has inspired pensioners to cooperate with other youth organisations, such as La Cosa Nostra Youth Organisation, and to organise further value-sharing events.

This initiative addresses a real social problem and provides solutions for the elderly to spend their time actively and usefully while supporting disadvantaged youngsters and families. It all started with the coordination of the municipality, later followed by programmes jointly organised with other youth organisations through a self-organising process. The good practice gives an example for the municipality’s coordinating/intermediary role, for the ways how the older generations and youngsters can cooperate (playhouses, supplementary learning, value-transferring programmes for the young), and turning the positive process started in the civil society into a system. Beyond organising cooperation between generations, they also provide profitable information about how youngsters from the disadvantaged groups should be dealt with individually.

The Intermediation Service for People in the Process of Evictions and Occupancies (SIPHO) is the last phase in an intervention by the Unit Against Residential Exclusion under Barcelona Municipality's 2016-25 Right to Housing Plan. Its objective is to coordinate relevant actors and resources for urgent, integral intervention.
The service intervenes in cases where eviction orders are being executed, and debt settlement arrangements and income continuance have either not been explored or not been accepted. Its functions include:
• Mediation between landlords and tenants, and between lenders and mortgagees;
• Options to assume the existing debt and arrears and allow occupants to remain in place;
• Arrangements for legal aid;
• Advice and assistance;
• And competency to allocate alternative housing where evictions are unavoidable.
In 2016 the service helped more than 1,570 families, representing 80% of the total cases in the city.

Traditionally, homelessness has been addressed as a social services issue. It is evolving from a “staircase” model, where the person has to meet certain conditions in order to gradually have access to better and more stable housing, toward the “housing first” model, based on direct access to long-term housing together with social support. This latter has proved more cost-effective and with better results. The SIPHO programme takes this same logic but applied to preventive measures deriving from housing policies. If “housing first” puts housing at the centre of social integration, this same principle should remain when evictions take place in case of vulnerability and exclusion. This programme is the last resource against homelessness. Its objective is to coordinate all the actors and resources involved through an integral intervention on urgent cases. The functions include: mediation, options for assuming debt and allowing occupants to remain, arrangements for legal aid, advice and assistance, and authority to allocate alternative housing. The interventions involve cases where eviction is underway and debt settlements and income continuance have not been explored or were rejected. This practice belongs to the Unit Against Residential Exclusion of the Right to Housing Plan wider plan of Barcelona.

The practice presented by Barcelona Municipality embraces the URBACT principles of sustainable urban living. The objective of this practice is to reduce homelessness through preventive measures on eviction processes, therein linked with poverty and social exclusion. Homelessness is often the outcome of the complex interplay of a series of vulnerability factors. However, unemployment and household over-indebtedness remain major risks across Europe, according to the 2016 European Commission Research project “Homeless prevention in the context of evictions”. The SIPHO practice is also a relevant example of the integrated and participative approach principles. Its objective is to reduce eviction through effective interventions that often include the coordination of a wide array of services, both horizontally (social services, housing offices, emergency services, health services, educational services at the local level) and vertically, with metropolitan, provincial and regional organisations. The coordination with other civil society organisations is equally essential. In the case of Barcelona it constitutes a key element at different stages: at the time of identifying the cases, when neighbourhood associations or the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) report cases, and also while finding solutions, when non-governmental organisations provide emergency housing alternatives or emergency aid funds.

To a great extent, interventions in urgent evictions were previously carried out by civil society organisations, like the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages and other NGOs. However, the profile of the evicted people has changed since then, now mostly affecting rental and social housing and precarious occupancies. In this regard, Barcelona has now joined the most common profile of evictions in most EU cities. Despite this, the structures, procedures and lessons learned from the large number of evictions due to foreclosures have greatly contributed to developing this local practice. Their participation has been essential in both the design and the implementation of the practice. Participatory bodies like the Housing Advisory Board (Conseill d´Habitatge), the Local Eviction Network (Taula de Desonaments), the District Housing Meetings or the Local Social Emergency Network (Mesa de Emergencia Social) have been set up to assess cases and prioritise access to alternative accommodation. These bodies have a watchdog role in implementation and accountability processes.

According to the Unit Against Residential Exclusion (UCER) of the Housing Department, where the SIPHO operates, 679 families were assisted in 2014, 1,020 families in 2015 and 1,574 families in 2016. That means an annual increase of almost 50%. This number does not correspond to an increase of eviction cases, quite the contrary. In 2016, the number of evictions decreased by 8%. However, it remains extraordinary high, with 30 evictions a week just in Barcelona. Nonetheless, this last data should be read with caution, as they are not disaggregated between first homes and other kinds of real estate. The increase of families assisted by this homelessness prevention project corresponds to the local administration’s firm commitment to strengthen this service. Today, 80% of eviction processes involve this service. It should be noted that data on eviction is extremely hard to collect as it is frequently dispersed, not disaggregated or is even non-existent. Due to the extraordinary number of evictions in Spain since the beginning of the economic crisis, Spain has some of the most accurate data in the EU, according to the experts that coordinated the European Commission report, “Homeless prevention in the context of evictions”.

A large share of the population cannot access adequate housing, especially low- and lower-income households. Housing affordability is becoming a great concern in urban contexts across the EU, with more than 17.3% of the population facing risks of poverty, 11.4% of the population living with burdensome housing costs and with dropping investment in social housing (EUROSTAT). The widespread increase of homelessness is one of the outcomes of these factors (FEANTSA). Homelessness carries an enormous human cost for the individual or the family affected, but it also carries a large cost for public budgets. Keeping a family in their home is a much more cost-effective approach than paying for inappropriate emergency housing. According to European Commission research mentioned in former sections, in countries like Austria and Germany, it has been estimated that each €1 spent on prevention services may save €7 of costs for temporary accommodations and rehabilitation for homeless households. In addition, a number of national experts have identified deficits in the availability and accessibility of eviction prevention services, according to the EU report, and cities are best equipped to conduct this preventive intervention. Finally, in order to meet the priorities of the Urban Agenda of the EU, the New Urban Agenda of the UN Habitat World Conference as well as the forthcoming European Pillar of Social Rights, this practice should be incorporated.