Economic Sustainability in Social Housing Interventions: The Impact of Operating Variables on Housing Costs of Temporary Dwelling

The paper discusses the results emerging from a research carried out on a social housing intervention currently in progress in Turin, Northern Italy. The aim of the research relays in defining a model useful to control the building integrated sustainability, especially regarding some designing and operative variables such as plants typology, building technologies or inhabitants income burdens, all affecting housing cost components as well as the operating margin of the building manager.The methodological approach is based on the application of a financial-economic and dynamic tool finalized to simulate cash flows scenarios depending on variations to be applied to different variables such as energetic performances of the building, average rents per type of dwelling, etc.The emerging results evidence that it is effectively possible to balance the housing costs components (rent rates and operating expenses) with the energetic performances of the building, reducing up to 60% the energetic expenses and up to10% the 'housing cost' as a whole. The results highlight the added value acquirable by real estate promoters and developers in testing ex-ante technical, designing and managerial choices by means of flexible scenarios.The value of the analysis lies in showing how to take into account architecture, plants and relative impacts on housing costs, in order to define the best mix of technical and operating inputs, to foresee and adjust the economic and social variables, also in relation to a specific urban location and a peculiar mixitè of inhabitants.