Prague, Oct 5 (CTK) – The adoption of a social housing bill would reduce Czech public expenditures by up to 100 million crowns a year, Vit Lesak, from the Platform for Social Housing, said on Wednesday, giving the reduction of the state allowances to owners of private dormitories as one of the effects.
Lesak spoke at a conference on the new piece of legislation prepared by the centre-left government.
He presented an analysis of the bill’s effects.
If low-income families were moved from private dormitories to social flats, the state would save more than 13,000 crowns on each such family in the first years and more than 20,000 crowns from the fourth year on, Lesak said.
There are 5,000 such families that lack their own housing, and the number of people afflicted this way has tripled in the past five years, Lesak said.
Last year, there were 187,000 such people in the Czech Republic, and their number can be expected to rise to half a million in the five years to come, he said.
The average housing costs in dormitories and asylum houses are 26,215 crowns per household and month. In social flats, they would reach 24,801 crowns, Lesak said.
The saving would be most effective in the medium and long term.
About 180 million crowns a month would be saved as a result of the stabilisation of families and the return of children from institutional care or step families, according to the analysis.
It also expects a decrease in unemployment, which would save nine million crowns per head, and also a decrease in crime.
Jaroslav Zavadil, chairman of the lower house social committee, told the conference that he expects the new law to eliminate business with poverty.
Brno Deputy Mayor Matej Hollan said the law should help not only the people from socially deprived localities but also seniors.
He said he believes that the bill, supported by the Social Democrats, CSSD) and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), will finally also be supported in parliament by the third government partner, Finance Minister Andrej Babis’s ANO movement.
