The government yesterday approved a law on housing support that is intended to create systemic support for people at risk of housing distress. There are up to 1.6 million such people in the Czech Republic. According to the Ministry of Regional Development (MMR), the law focuses primarily on families with children and the elderly, who are most at risk of losing their ordinary housing, it said in a press release. Along with this, the government also approved an amendment proposed by Justice Minister Pavel Blažek (ODS) that will make it easier for landlords to evict problem tenants.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, one of the main goals of the law is to gradually reduce the number of people in housing need from the current 154,000. Two-thirds of them are families with children. “The Housing Support Act aims to help families and individuals who, even as a result of the impact of the many crises our country has gone through in recent years, are increasingly facing problems with maintaining or even obtaining housing,” said Labour and Social Affairs Minister Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL).
The government also hopes the regulation will save on costs related to the housing crisis. According to the government, these costs exceed CZK 4 billion annually from public budgets.
The law envisages, for example, the creation of contact points in municipalities with extended jurisdiction that will provide advice aimed at preventing housing loss. There will also be a voluntary system of guarantees for private landlords and financial contributions for municipalities that rent out their flats to people in housing need, as well as housing assistance to help supported households maintain their housing while minimising the risks for landlords and neighbours.
According to Jurečka, the mechanisms introduced by the law should lead to a reduction in the number of children in shelters or seniors in residential hotels. Jurečka said it should also help children leaving institutional care or the disabled find housing. “These are all groups that today end up, at best, in institutions that cost us many times more to run than the support for obtaining housing and subsequent settlement. At worst, these people end up on the streets, where the state then pays the increased costs of health care and emergency services,” Jurečka added.
During the discussion of the law yesterday, the government approved an amendment that Blažek said would make it easier for landlords to evict troubled tenants with a so-called eviction order. The aim is to shorten and, above all, simplify court proceedings.
Regional Development Minister Ivan Bartoš (Pirates) stressed that the law was prepared in cooperation with representatives of local governments and the non-profit sector. “The Law on Housing Support is a long-term systemic change that does not make sense to prepare for a single election period. For this reason, it was important for us to find common ground and gain the broadest possible support among the various partners,” Bartoš noted.
The approval of the law was appreciated by the Za bydlení initiative. “We see it as a key milestone in addressing the housing shortage,” said its spokesman Mikoláš Opletal. According to him, the law has been pending for several years, so the initiative warned against further delaying the approval process.
“The number of people in housing need is constantly growing. In the context of the covid pandemic and Russian aggression in Ukraine, the housing shortage has further deepened. I think it is appropriate to use the term housing crisis so that the government finally starts to address the situation as quickly and effectively as possible,” said Karolína Kripnerová, co-founder of Architects Without Borders. Kateřina Dosoudilová, the head of social services at People in Need, said the legislation is of high quality and hopes it will be adopted quickly in Parliament.
The draft law on housing support is part of the so-called Housing for Life reform promoted by the Ministry of the Interior, which aims, among other things, to ensure the necessary investment for the construction and reconstruction of affordable rental housing.
Source: CTK
