Ústí nad Labem

Czech town hires Romani lifeguards, swimmers respond positively - especially Romanes speakers

5.7.2019 8:47  full story

Czech Republic's governing party tries to spin real estate market fluctuation as proof of its "success" at tackling ghettoes

10.6.2019 8:18  full story

Karel Karika: Benefit-free zones are absurd, the populists are abusing their power

18.2.2019 12:37  full story

Yet another Czech city announces its entire territory to be a housing benefit-free zone

18.2.2019 11:03  full story

Karel Karika: Czech PM's party avoiding coalition with winning local movement is a "mega-dirty trick"

18.12.2018 8:46  full story

Czech evictees must leave school gym this weekend for housing in socially excluded localities

14.7.2018 9:25 Of the people who had to move away from one of two residential hotels that closed as of 30 June in the Czech city of Ústí nad Labem without having anywhere else to go, three families with children and three single men remain housed in the gym of a primary school in the socially excluded Předlice neighborhood. As of yesterday, two of those families have rental housing arranged in a building near Na Nivách Street, while the third family says they believe they will manage to find housing in the Nové Březno neighborhood.  full story

Jan Cibrik explains his collaboration with Czech city officials who are so harsh about impoverished Roma

9.7.2018 20:36 The crisis in the Czech town of Ústí nad Labem that broke out in connection with the closing of two residential hotels seems to have been smoothed over for now. Thanks to enormous efforts primarily by the Deputy Mayor of one of the centrally-located municipal departments, Karel Karika, most of the people living in the closing facility in that municipality managed to find new housing, while about 25 people from the other facility have been provided temporary shelter by the city in the gym of a school in the excluded Předlice neighborhood.  full story

Czech residential hotels close, 21 people now living in a primary school gym

1.7.2018 8:32 Yesterday the last tenants in the two residential hotels closing in the Czech town of Ústí nad Labem moved out. According to those who attended the Friday coordination group meeting among representatives of the city, social workers and nonprofit organizations, of the 224 people in need of rehousing, 177 have accommodation arranged and housing for 25 more people was in the process of being sought.  full story

Czech landlord allegedly threatens to pull the plug tonight on evictees' amplified displacement party

27.6.2018 16:00 The people being evicted from the Klíšská and Modrá residential hotels in Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic are bidding farewell to the neighborhood today with musical performances under the slogans "We Won't Go Live on the Street!" and "Black, White, Together We Fight!", holding a community gathering in advance of their having to move out on 30 June. The evictees want to draw attention to their desperate situation and to point out that the authorities have de facto created a real quandary when it comes to making social housing accessible.  full story

Czech city says 56 evictees still not rehoused, must move by the end of the week

25.6.2018 15:04 Of the two residential hotels in the Czech city of Ústí nad Labem that are closing their operations on Saturday, 56 people still need to be rehoused. There are 224 people officially registered as living in the facilities.

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Czech region where evictions are underway keeps rejecting plans to subsidize lunches for impoverished schoolchildren

21.6.2018 11:20 News server iDNES.cz reports that the Ústecký Regional Assembly has refused to support a motion from its Regional Council to allocate regional finances to cover the costs of lunches at school for children from impoverished families. The assembly members were especially bothered by the fact that the financing was to have been distributed through a nonprofit organization.  full story

videoCivil society members of Czech Govt Roma Council leave meeting in protest against housing benefit-free zones

19.6.2018 15:03 Romani civil society members of the Czech Govt Council for Romani Minority affairs have left the Council meeting today to protest the current Government's social policy. They are demanding the abolition of housing benefit-free zones and the withdrawal of a bill to amend the Act on Aid to Those in Material Distress even further in a restrictive direction.  full story

videoLIVE: Civil society members of Czech Govt Council for Romani Minority Affairs make statement

19.6.2018 13:24 At 13:30 the civil society members of the Czech Government Council for Romani Minority Affairs will give a statement about the introduction of the legal provision for municipalities to declare areas on their territories as "localities with an increased incidence of socially undesirable phenomena", the so-called "housing benefit-free zones". The Council already called this legal provision in the law on aid to those in material distress discriminatory during its 8 November 2017 session.  full story

Czech Labor and Social Affairs Minister says nobody has to live on the street after residential hotels close

19.6.2018 12:38 The City of Ústí nad Labem is doing its best to gradually arrange housing for the people from two residential hotels that are closing at the end of June. According to City Hall, they have managed to find replacement housing for more than half of the people affected.  full story

Families with children facing eviction sue Czech city for putting them at risk of homelessness

18.6.2018 19:20 Tenants of residential hotels that are closing are in a situation of acute danger of homelessness and have filed suit against the City of Ústí nad Labem with the Regional Court. One part of their lawsuit is a motion for a preliminary injunction to halt the application of the "measures of a general nature" which the city is using to limit where housing subsidies are disbursed on their territory, including in impoverished localities.  full story

Residential hotels closing in Czech city, Romani tenants have yet to find substitute accommodation

1.6.2018 19:22 The inhabitants of two residential hotels in the Czech city of Ústí nad Labem that will close at the end of June still do not know where they will be moving. During their housing search they are encountering the need to pay deposits they cannot afford, as well as discrimination from landlords.
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Czech Republic: Apartment building on fire in Romani neighborhood, 20 injured, including children

22.3.2018 9:20 In the Předlice quarter of Ústí nad Labem 20 people are injured after an apartment building caught fire there this morning. Most of those injured are suffering from smoke inhalation. 

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Czech Republic: Romani boy assaulted on bus by ticket-checker gives interview to Romea.cz

19.1.2018 8:38 Reporters for news server Romea.cz have interviewed the boy whom a ticket-checker working for public transit used force against last week when she attempted to remove him from the morning commute to school, and we have interviewed his mother and another youth who filmed the incident on his mobile phone. The boy alleges that when he got onto the bus with his friends he could already hear the ticket-checker shouting at other children on the bus.
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Czech city's transit authority admits ticket-checker should not have touched Romani child but otherwise backs her

13.1.2018 11:48 The transit authority of the City of Ústí nad Labem (DPMUL) issued a press release yesterday acknowledging that their ticket-checker was not authorized to grab a boy's hand while doing her job on one of the city buses recently. However, the DPMUL is alleging that the boy was vulgar to her and refused to take his backpack off, so they are standing by their employee in the matter.  full story

Epidemic of hepatitis in Czech town: Local Romani organization offers aid

24.11.2017 8:08 The Czech town of Ústí nad Labem is undergoing an epidemic of hepatitis A, with almost 300 people ill and the disease spreading to other towns in the region. The first outbreak of the epidemic was recorded in the Mojžíř socially excluded locality and other cases have been recorded in Předlice, with the disease later spreading to the "non-Romani" part of town.  full story