Czech Labor Minister for ROMEA TV: Government as a whole is responsible for addressing social exclusion

After touring the Chanov housing estate in the Czech town of Most last month, Czech Labor and Social Affairs Minister Jana Maláčová gave an interview to ROMEA TV. "Collaboration among more than one ministry is important when it comes to resolving the problem of excluded localities and trafficking in poverty, " she said.

"Without a law on affordable housing, without having anywhere else to house people - and not just those from social[ly excluded] localities - and in a situation where our only support for housing is provided through benefits in the welfare system, this is a very complex problem. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs will advocate for a resolution, but the Government as a whole is responsible for the problem of socially excluded localities," Maláčová said when accompanying a traveling session of the Chamber of Deputies' Committees on Health and Social Policy.

"The problem of socially excluded localities is constantly becoming bigger and bigger. Cutting housing benefits will not resolve this problem on its own, but we want to better target those benefits and to change their parameters," the minister said.

There are currently nine apartment buildings at the Chanov housing estate in Most. Only one of them offers hot water service and has just been reconstructed.

According to the Mayor of Most, Markéta Stará, people were relocated onto the housing estate by the authorities in the 1970s after Most's Old Town was demolished in order to mine coal there. Currently 1 150 people have registered addresses at the housing estate as their permanent residence.