Founded in 1899 on the suggestion of Louis Bertrand, the alderman for finance at Schaerbeek council, the Foyer Schaerbeekois is the oldest public social housing organisation in Brussels. Today it is still in operation and building many different groups of social housing of various types. From small houses to apartment buildings, and also garden suburbs, it has been responsible for several dozen projects, designed by well-known architects who have borrowed their stylistic vocabularies from Art Nouveau, Art Deco and the cottage style.

The Cité Terdelt was the first garden suburb in Schaerbeek. Completed in 1926, it includes both single-family houses in the Normandy and Art Deco styles as well as small apartment buildings set on the junctions of main roads. Today the Cité Terdelt has retained a beautiful homogeneity, in spite of the sometimes very different styles of its buildings.