Commentary: Czech social housing concept needs a total rewrite
It seems the outgoing Rusnok cabinet wanted to manage the production of as many conceptual materials as possible before leaving office. Fortunately, they have resisted pressure to make a decision on whether to breach existing environmental protection limits on mining.
There are other, no less important matters at issue here. One of them is the "Concept on Social Housing in the Czech Republic", a material that was originally to have been presented to the Government this past summer but which has only now been submitted.
This is the first material of its kind in the Czech Republic. Many different stakeholders have been calling for many years for the elaboration of a document to define social housing and to delineate both its target groups and the principles according to which the state will support this kind of accommodation.
After studying the current document, however, we have no choice but to find that not only does it not meet our expectations, it does exactly the opposite. Implementation of its proposals could lead to preservation of the status quo whereby social housing is being replaced with segregated residential hotels in which a continually growing part of the population is forced to reside and from which there exists practically no way back to standard housing – and one component of these residential hotels is the fertile field of trafficking in poverty.
The current concept was created by the Regional Development Ministry (Ministerstvo pro místní rozvoj – MMR), which has housing policy as part of its agenda, in collaboration with the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry (Ministerstvo práce a sociálních věcí – MPSV). Unfortunately, the very process of creating the document was itself problematic.
The concept was compiled by bureaucrats behind the closed doors of their offices in Prague, bureaucrats who take no interest in international practice in this field and no interest in the experiences of those who provide aid on a daily basis to people who have lost their homes, are at risk of losing them, or live in unsuitable accommodation. While the ministries did hold two round tables (one on the analytical section of the concept and one on the recommendation section) where chosen stakeholders got the opportunity to express their views of material that was already de facto finished, the ministries took practically none of the dozens of essential suggestions made during those meetings into account.
The participation of experts in those round tables was subsequently abused by the ministries as a way to deflect their critics. To the recrimination that experts with practical experience were never involved in the process of designing this document, the ministries have responded that they consulted it with the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion and the Platform for Social Housing.
When we remind the ministries that both of those entities harshly criticized the concept, they then respond that other experts from the public agreed with it. Last week Deputy Regional Development Minister Miroslav Kalous revealed who those other experts were: Reportedly, they included the Tenants’ Association of the Czech Republic, the Senior Citizens’ Council of the Czech Republic, and then-Deputy Ombudsman Stanislav Křeček (i.e., a representative of an office that has for many years advocated a completely opposite notion of social housing to the one in the draft concept).
The basis of the concept as whole, therefore, was never changed after these "consultations" with experts. It is based primarily on enhancing social work, primarily the work performed by municipalities.
The MMR is of the opinion that the main problem of those excluded from accommodation is that they lack they social skills needed to maintain housing. The concept literally states that "by acquiring sufficient competencies to live independently, clients should achieve their aim, i.e., independent housing."
Another innovation of the concept is its support for investment into residential hotels. Thanks to bureaucratic word games, this fact is not altogether obvious from the text of the document.
The MMR, under pressure from the critics of the residential hotel business, has gradually replaced the phrase "residential hotel" with different terms in the text, such as "buildings for social housing", "facilities for social housing", or "houses for social housing". The meaning of these terms, however, remains the same.
These terms still de facto concern segregated residential hotels with communal facilities that do not provide sufficiently dignified, quality housing and that trap people in a vicious circle of social exclusion. The proposed "Concept of Social Housing" also contravenes, in many respects, how this same problem is framed by the "Concept on the Prevention and Resolution of the Problem of Homelessness in the Czech Republic by 2020", as well as the solutions offered by that document, which was approved by the Government this summer.
The policy on homelessness was compiled in large part by experts from academia and the nonprofit sector, who linked their proposed solutions to a broader understanding of homelessness as defined by the European typology of homelessness (ETHOS). That typology considers not just people living on the streets or in selected residential facilities run by social services to be homeless, but also people who are crowded into the residential hotels.
In other words, ETHOS grasps residential hotels as a problem that must be resolved by making standard housing accessible, not as a solution to homelessness. The draft "Concept on Social Housing" practically never addresses the fundamental question of how to increase the accessibility of standard housing for those currently excluded from it (with the exception of some measures meant to reduce the obstacles to accessing such housing, which for many low-income households today includes security deposits).
The ETHOS typology also defines the situations of inappropriate and insecure housing. The "Concept on the Prevention and Resolution of the Problem of Homelessness" also fundamentally emphasizes preventing housing loss, unlike the draft "Concept on Social Housing".
One of the basic deficiencies of the "Concept on Social Housing" is that it lacks a description of the target group, households who would have a legal claim to state-provided social housing. The draft concept believes social workers employed by municipalities should decide whom to provide what forms of housing aid.
Many experts and organizations working with homeless people in the Czech Republic have long agreed that a law on social housing needs to be drafted. The current concept does not propose the adoption of such a law.
A law, naturally, would not solve everything in and of itself – the quality of its content would be essential. The legislative definition of social housing should provide not just a delineation of what social housing is and is not, as well as a description of its target group, but should also provide a clear definition of the responsibilities of municipalities and the state to provide social housing and to create tools for its financial support.
It is startling that both legislators and ministerial bureaucrats reject and underestimate the need for such a law, here with the argument that no law will ever ensure someone an apartment, there with the argument that no one would ever actually obey such a law. Can it be that, through their doubts, the legislators and politicians are trying to tell us that there is no rule of law in the Czech Republic, that the law is not upheld here?
Can it be that legislators don’t even count on the rule of law? According to Deputy Regional Development Minister Miroslav Kalous (Civic Democrats – ODS), "to obligate a municipality to build a certain percentage of apartments in which people who are incapable of arranging their own housing are to live won’t work all that well, because the municipality doesn’t even know how many such apartments it might need. If the state instructs the municipality to do this and it builds the apartments, but then the problem is resolved and the apartments are no longer needed, it is not clear what would subsequently be done with those properties."
It seems that Kalous and the ministry are creating a straw man here for the purpose of defeating him. No one has ever claimed that it is first and foremost necessary to build new apartments.
The ministry is sticking to its guns and says it would like to build not apartments, but new, supposedly improved, residential hotels. However, according to the most recent census of apartments, houses, and people in the Czech Republic, there are around 600 000 vacant apartments here.
Clearly some of these are used for recreation while some cannot be used for other reasons. The draft concept, however, does not address at all the options or the structure for taking advantage of vacancies in the existing housing stock in general.
These vacant apartments could contribute toward creating dispersed, non-segregated housing for low-income families. In other countries there are mechanisms for making housing stock accessible to people in need and reducing risks to landlords (one good example is that of the social rental agencies operating in Belgium and elsewhere).
Who benefits from defending the residential hotels?
One of the most vocal defenders of residential hotels and opponents of a law on social housing is Deputy Minister Kalous. In his view, residential hotels can mean the difference between having a roof over one’s head and ending up on the street.
His philosophy, however, misses the fact that many people end up in residential hotels precisely because they have been evicted from municipally-owned rental housing so that "their" apartments can then be sold to third parties. For many people rental housing is also becoming financially inaccessible.
Recently, therefore, residential hotels have not aided homeless people, but have rather become fairly productive factories for producing them. During the past three years a fundamental change in the purpose of residential hotels has occurred, transforming them from providing short-term accommodation to providing long-term accommodation for entire families who have lost the option of finding rental housing of better quality.
The ministry brags that the draft concept presumes there will be an improvement in the hygienic and technical standards of residential hotels such that it will no longer be possible for adults and children to be living in places that are completely unsuitable. The Platform for Social Housing, however, believes that residential hotels are in and of themselves unsuitable for long-term accommodation.
Those living in residential hotels lack an inspirational environment for their children’s development, privacy, and security of tenure. They are forced to share bathrooms and kitchens with the other residents, and this becomes a cause of daily conflict.
In its materials, the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion states that the inhabitants of residential hotels are stigmatized on the basis of their address, which often seriously restricts their chances in other areas of social life. Research shows that people in residential hotels do not live there because they prefer this kind of facility to other forms of housing, and they do not stay in residential hotels of their own free will, as Miroslav Kalous believes.
The vast majority of people occupying residential hotels would be glad to acquire standard rental housing. Petr Bláha, a salesperson for Nový prostor (New Space) magazine, which aids the homeless and street people, describes life in a residential hotel on the basis of his own experience as follows: "I had no privacy at the residential hotel. I lacked basic things like a safe place to leave my most important stuff and my money. I was forced to share a room with people whom I did not know at all and I never knew what would happen from one day to the next. Today I live in an apartment, I have a family, and I am gradually beginning to stand firmly on my own two feet."
In the program declaration drafted by the incoming coalition government (comprised of ANO, the Christian Democrats and the Czech Social Democrats) the obligation to design a social housing law has been formulated. Outgoing Czech PM Rusnok met with the Platform for Social Housing on Friday 13 December and admitted that his government would be leaving discussion of the draft concept to the new incoming cabinet.
The Platform believes this is the most reasonable course of action. The current concept should be rejected and new material should be drafted, including a law that will not solely reflect the interests of various lobbyists, but also the experiences of nonprofit organizations working with homeless people, and primarily that will meet the needs of people who do not have the good fortune to live in dignified, quality housing.
