Experts welcome the adoption of the housing support law, they wanted a more progressive form

Prague – The Housing Support Act, which was approved by the Chamber of Deputies today, will, according to experts from the initiative For Housing, contribute to solving the housing crisis in the Czech Republic. However, they believed in a more progressive form than what the deputies sent for approval to the Senate. The initiative, which brings together entities and individuals from non-governmental organizations, social service providers, academics, and representatives of local governments, stated this in a press release. The proposal was developed by the Ministry of Regional Development (MMR) under the former minister Ivan Bartoš (Pirates). After the Pirates left the government, however, the shape of the proposal changed. Bartoš described the current form of the adopted law as inadequate.

"We now consider it crucial that the bill gets through the remaining part of the approval process by the end of the current electoral term. The law is indeed an essential prerequisite for both systematically anchoring functioning tools to prevent exclusion from standard housing and combating poverty-related trade," said Mikoláš Opletal from the initiative For Housing.

The Housing Support Act is intended to primarily help people at risk of housing distress. It includes, for example, the establishment of a network of contact points that will provide advice aimed at preventing the loss of housing. A voluntary system of guarantees for private landlords, known as guaranteed housing, and financial contributions for municipalities that rent their apartments to people in housing distress is also to be created. The proposal faced criticism from the opposition movements ANO and SPD, which argue that a demanding, expensive, and complex system will be created, but it will not bring more apartments to the market.

The adoption of the law is considered correct by, for example, the deputy mayor of Olomouc, Kateřina Dobrozemská (ProOlomouc and Pirates). "From the perspective of a municipality striving for a conceptual solution and, above all, the prevention of households falling into housing distress, we welcome the result of today's vote in the Chamber of Deputies. The Czech Republic has long lacked a housing support system that would connect the local level with the national one and would also allow municipalities to build a tailored support system. I believe that both counseling and the tool of housing with guarantees will find application in every municipality. We need to motivate private landlords to rent out unused apartments," she stated.

The government's original proposal counted on contact points for housing being established in municipalities with extended jurisdiction, of which there are 205 in the country according to available information. The government expected this would result in the creation of 352 new jobs and financial costs amounting to 348 million crowns. However, the parliamentary committee on public administration reduced the projected number of contact points to 115, which the law stipulates. They will be established mainly where there is a higher number of people at risk of losing their housing and where labor office workplaces are located. Municipalities will be able to decide whether to voluntarily establish a contact point.

Bartoš stated on the social network X that the approved form of the law was "completely gutted" by the governing coalition and that only its "gnawed skeleton" passed through the Chamber. "The government does not even care that the law could save the state up to four billion crowns in the future, according to experts. It again shows that Minister (Zbyňek) Stanjura's (ODS) work on the budget is short-sighted. And the future of people is worthless to him. It's again the style of 'after us, the deluge'. We really do not identify with this as Pirates," he wrote on the social network.

Motorists described the law in a statement sent to ČTK as another example of ineffective centralist approach. "Instead of addressing the real causes of the housing crisis, it merely brings more bureaucratic burden. Contact centers, which are supposed to help people in housing distress, will actually be distributing non-existent apartments. This system will lead to chaos, unpreparedness, and abuse, without providing a real solution for those in need," they believe.

The law is also supposed to help households with incomes up to 1.43 times the subsistence minimum based on an accepted amendment by Jiří Havránek (ODS). The initiative For Housing previously labeled this step as one of the things that jeopardizes the functionality of the law, as it is too strict. The current Minister for Regional Development, Petr Kulhánek (for STAN), stated in a press release that he agreed with the chairpersons of the governing coalition parties to increase the subsistence minimum coefficient to 1.6. The adopted law allows for this governmental decision.

Thus, the approval of the law is also considered correct by socioeconomist Martin Lux from the Czech Academy of Sciences and an expert on housing issues. According to him, the specific parameters that may not be correctly set in the law now can be changed by the cabinet as needed. "This law has been called for since the mid-90s, and although there have been several attempts, all have failed. It is really a huge success and I am sure that the new law will effectively address acute housing distress, as well as prevent it," added Lux.