Housing

Robin Stria, 7th place candidate for the Greens, Brno-střed: The biggest problem in the Czech Republic is housing

27.9.2018 7:29 More than 160 Romani candidates are running in this year's local elections on 5 and 6 October. News server Romea.cz is presenting interviews with those we believe have the biggest chance of being elected who are listed in top positions on the candidate lists of registered political parties and movements.  full story

Czech Govt Human Rights Commissioner says she will criticize politicians who are racist and resign rather than be censored

20.7.2018 14:39 Speaking in an interview for ROMEA TV, the newly-appointed Czech Government Commissioner for Human Rights, Martina Štěpánková, who answers directly to Czech
Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, the head of the ANO movement, said that "Politicians create the climate in society to a significant degree. For that reason it is very important for many more politicians here to condemn racism and discrimination."  full story

Slovak court finds Romani tenants were discriminated against during eviction and relocation

16.7.2018 9:23 A court in eastern Slovakia has decided that the authorities committed discrimination when they evicted tenants from buildings in the center of the town of Sabinov because their treatment of the non-Romani and the Romani tenants was not the same. The Regional Court in Prešov has now closed a dispute that has lasted more than a decade  with its decision.  full story

Residents of Czech neighborhood announce "Two Weeks of Vigilance" to protest their impending eviction

16.7.2018 7:43 On Monday 9 July the residents of the Bedřiška neighborhood in Ostrava, Czech Republic announced "Two Weeks of Vigilance" out of concern that they will lose their housing there. The event, subtitled "Colors of Bedřiška" (a reference to the annual music festival Colors of Ostrava), is meant to draw attention to the difficult situation of the locals and present life in the neighborhood, which has not met the definition of an "excluded locality" for some time, to the public.  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 city with homeless evictees refused Govt Agency for Social Inclusion help, some local Roma petitioned against it

9.7.2018 18:35 The local assembly in the Czech city of Ústí nad Labem refused to collaborate with the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion at a meeting last month. Those in favor of the collaboration were just two assembly members from the movement "Pro! Ústí" ("For! Ústí").  full story

Czech fundraising campaign begins for 25 evictees now living in a primary school gym

6.7.2018 8:33 The gym at a school in the Předlice neighborhood of the Czech city of Ústí nad Labem became a temporary residence last weekend for 25 people evicted from the Modrá residential hotel, which closed on 30 June. Thanks to the enormous efforts made primarily by Karel Karika, the Vice-Mayor of the central municipal department of the city, new rental housing was secured for all the residents of another residential hotel (Klišská) which also closed on 30 June.  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 President verbally assails residential hotel evictees, supports city's move to abolish housing benefits entirely

19.6.2018 15:40 Czech President Miloš Zeman perceives declaring municipal territories "housing benefit-free zones" to be part of combating poverty. He would agree with declaring all of the City of Ústí nad Labem such a zone.  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

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

Czech Green Party says current housing crisis involving Romani evictees makes previous ones seem humane by comparison

18.6.2018 15:01 The leadership of the Green Party in the Ústecký Region of the Czech Republic is appealing to the leadership of the City of Ústí nad Labem to arrange crisis housing for the inhabitants of two residential hotels that are closing as of 30 June because as many as 230 people, 80 of them children, now living in the buildings in the city center and the Střekov quarter could end up living on the streets. "City Hall, through its decision to officially designate zones in the city where new arrivals will no longer be eligible for housing beneifts, has triggered a wave of reactions," their press release reports.  full story

Social worker associations ask Czech city not to "abuse" social work

18.6.2018 13:58 Three associations of professional social workers - the Association of Educators in Social Work, the Social Workers' Society, and the Professional Chamber of Social Workers - have sent open letters about the housing crisis developing in the Czech city of Ústí nad Labem, and news server Romea.cz is publishing both letters in full translation below. One of the letters is addressed to fellow social workers there and calls on them to perform their jobs in accordance with "social work values" when fulfilling the city's commissions.  full story

Czech Police respond to incident between NGO social workers and Romani parents about impending evictions

8.6.2018 13:06

The situation at one of the residential hotels in Ústí nad Labem slated for closure as of the end of this month escalated on 5 June to such an extent that police were called to the scene after a verbal conflict transpired between the tenants of the residential hotel on Klíšská Street and social workers from the People In Need organization who proposed to a mother with five children that she could increase her chances of finding new housing if she would just place two of her children with the Klokánek project, which offers temporary foster care. "Two social workers from People in Need came here, and one lady looking for housing was offered the alternative solution of placing two of her children with the Klokánek project and keeping the other three with her so she can find housing," Marek Kondáš, who is also a tenant at the residential hotel, described the beginning of the conflict to news server Romea.cz.

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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 Labor Minister says lower housing benefits will drive down rents, experts say it will destroy social housing policy

31.5.2018 16:19 The proposed reduction to housing benefits for families with four or more members and for persons in residential hotels, according to the acting Czech Labor Minister Němcová (ANO) will lead to a decline in the overpriced rents being charged where people in need live. Receiving less state support will reportedly not deteriorate or endanger the situations of people in need.  full story

videoMichal Miko to the Czech Regional Development Minister: Live in a container yourself, then we will see what you think of it

21.4.2018 11:51 The proposal of the Czech Regional Development Minister to build 55 000 "container" units of housing has outraged various civic activists. Michal Miko, project coordinator for the Slovo 21, z.s. NGO, has taken an unequivocally negative stance on the issue: "The fact that the Government wants to adopt a law making it possible to build 'container' apartment units is unacceptable to me as a civic activist."  full story

71 Czech towns plan to ban housing benefits and make life harder for the poorest of the poor

21.4.2018 8:36 Zones with an alleged "increased incidence of undesirable phenomena" in which new applicants will not be able to receive housing benefits have been announced or are planned for 71 cities and municipalities throughout the Czech Republic. The Institute for Social Inclusion (IPSI) announced the news on 12 April.  full story

Traffickers in poverty in the Czech Republic have a new trick for not losing their profitable business model

14.4.2018 20:34 Real estate speculators in the Czech Republic who charge high rents for dilapidated apartment units in socially excluded localities do not intend to lose their profitable "enterprises". They are selling apartment units in places where local councils have decided not to disburse housing benefits to their impoverished tenants and are buying other units in localities where the state housing benefit is not limited.  full story