The Brno-střed municipal district is preparing to expand housing counselling, change the rules for allocating municipal flats, and increase control of tenants to prevent fraud. It wants to improve the housing situation and restore residents’ confidence in a transparent system of allocating municipal flats, according to Martin Vrubel (KDU-ČSL), deputy mayor of the district. Police intervened at the town hall last year because of the allocation of flats.
The town hall wants to improve its housing policy in several ways. One of them is to expand counselling. From June, a new contact point will be set up, where a counsellor and a housing ombudsman will be available. “The advisor will help with orientation in the rules of allocating flats, with applications for a suitable size or category of flat, with the exchange of flats in case of a change of living situation or with the settlement of housing benefit. The ombudsman will address difficulties in cohabitation in municipal housing,” Vrubel said. The operation of the contact point will cost several million crowns. It will be covered by money from the EU, which will support the project for three years.
Another pillar lies in the new rules for allocating city flats. The rules have already been supported by the housing and legislative commission and will be discussed by councillors next week. They should also be approved by the borough council at its June meeting. The rules would then apply from 1 July. The change will consist, for example, in the fact that everything for which applicants receive points must be supported by specific documents. If the borough finds out that applicants are not telling the truth, they will be removed from the register for two years, up to now it is six months.
“Another change is that we will not give the criticized preference points, which were probably abused by some. We are giving preference to three groups, namely families with children, the elderly and single parents. In case of a tie in points, the time on the register will decide,” Vrubel said.
The last part consists in controlling the handling of the city flats. It will start with new rules that include mechanisms that make it harder for applicants to cheat. At the same time, authority staff will focus more on whether the same people who applied for municipal apartments are living in them. “We now have one worker who conducts local investigations. Now it will be two people, or more if necessary. In the last six months we have recorded about ten or fifteen cases of people renting council flats illegally. It also happens that someone is living in a municipal apartment even though they own another property,” Vrubel said.
Source: CTK
