Prague, March 8 (CTK) – The Czech government approved the closely-watched bill on social housing to restrict the “trading in poverty” yesterday, but the ANO movement did not agree with it, government spokesman Martin Ayrer has said.
The draft legislation will be sent to the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament, now.
Under the bill, municipalities would allocate social flats to people in need voluntarily and if they did not do so, the State Housing Development Fund (SFRB) would provide them. It would use state finances fro the construction, purchase and repairs of such flats or the the purchased of building lots.
The Chamber of Deputies must pass the bill by the October general election and President Milos Zeman must sign it into law so that the legislation takes effect as of next year.
Some sectors and institutions have raised objections to the legislation.
Regional Development Minister Karla Slechtova (ANO) said after the government vote that her office insisted on narrowing the group of inhabitants to be entitled to this form of aid to those in destitution only.
ANO is willing to propose a compromise since this is an important bill, Slechtova said .
However, Labour and Social Affairs Minister Michaela Marksova (Social Democrats, CSSD) said the current version of the the bill had already been a big compromise. The narrowing of this group would prevent a number of people in need from getting such flats, she said .
If the bill on social housing is passed, the first applicants for social flats may start turning to municipal authorities as of mid-2018. They should move into social flats in mid-2020 at the latest.
The bill is one of the priorities of the centre-left coalition government of the CSSD, ANO and Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) whose mandate expires in the autumn. Despite that the coalition parties were not able to agree on its wording.
Under the approved proposal, there would be two types of social flats: with obligatory social work and without it. The people in housing destitution would be entitled to this aid.
They will include those who have lived in hostels, institutions and asylum homes for six months and those who spend more than 40 percent of their incomes on appropriate housing and they have only under 1.6 times subsistence level left.
The elderly, disabled, crime victims and young people after leaving children’s homes should gain social flats without an unnecessary delay. Extremely “vulnerable” groups would receive them indefinitely, while in other cases this right would be assessed again in two years.
Municipalities would secure social housing on voluntary basis. If they joined the system, they would have to work out a plan of how many social flats and for whom they would need.
Some 2.8 billion crowns are to be spent on social housing and social work next year, 3.3 billion in 2019 and as of 2020, 4.9 billion annually. European subsidies should be used for this purpose. Another sum would go to housing benefits.
At present, about 12 billion crowns are annually spent on housing benefits and another 8.5 billion in connection with the impact of unsuitable housing and its social consequences, such as unemployment and taking children from families.
($1=25.547 crowns)
