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Czech NGO says tenants must leave condemned building

02 November 2012
2 minute read

People in Need (Člověk v tísni, o.p.s.) has released the following press release on the case of the building at Beneše Lounského street no. 5 in Ústí nad Labem-Předlice.

People in Need has recently been contributing toward finding a way to resolve the adverse situation of the families living at Beneše Lounského street no. 5 in Ústí nad Labem-Předlice. The private landlord’s poor caretaking of this real estate has led to a degradation of the load-bearing sections of the building. The landlord has previously been warned several times of the need to invest in repairs by the tenants, by several departments of the Ústí nad Labem town hall, and by People in Need staffers.

"Unauthorized repairs were previously performed which, in our opinion, contributed to deteriorating the structure. The Building Works Department has initiated an administrative proceedings against the owner in Ústí nad Labem. In our opinion, families are risking their lives by remaining in the building. There were originally seven families living in the building. We managed to arranged new accommodations for five families and two families arranged their own accommodations without our assistance," says Vít Kučera, director of the Ústí branch of the organization. Field social workers from the NGO will be negotiating with the landlord in the days to come about his ensuring rental housing for the residents in the long term.

Two coordination meetings have been held regarding the situation of the families whose lives are at risk in the building. The owner of the real estate did not attend either one. The meeting on Thursday, 1 November 2012 in the Předlice quarter was attended by the tenants’ representative, Ms Jaslová, by Jan Husák of the town hall, and by representatives of the Building Works Authority, the Labor Office, and the Municipal Police. A People in Need field social worker was also present for that meeting. During the second half of the meeting, individual representatives from all the apartment units in the building at Beneše Lounského street no. 5 were present. The aim of that part of the meeting was to support each family in resolving the adverse situations in which they find themselves as a result of the landlord’s inaction.

"We estimate that 29 buildings in the Předlice quarter are in disrepair, and there are tenants living in two of them," said director Kučera. The solution to such a situation is to quickly facilitate temporary, transitional housing for a very brief, restricted time, mainly in order to ensure the safety of the families concerned, and then to seek longer-term solutions for each family individually, given their needs and options, by assisting and supporting them in seeking other rental housing.

"We consider the town’s coordinated procedure against the owner of this life-endangering real estate and support for the tenants in seeking alternative housing to be the correct procedure and, in the case of this particular property, the only possible procedure," the director of People in Need’s Ústí branch said.

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