The Church wants to prepare pilot projects for social housing

Prague - The General Secretary of the Czech Bishops' Conference (ČBK) Tomáš Holub today reached an agreement with the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Michaela Marksová Tominová (ČSSD) on the preparation of pilot projects for social housing. Holub said this to ČTK after their meeting. The Catholic Church also nominated its representatives to the expert committee at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, which is working on the preparation of the law on social housing. Its acceptance is a condition for the Catholic Church to engage in the field of social housing.
     Investments in social housing should, according to Holub, be one of the options for utilizing funds obtained from financial compensation within the church restitutions. "We talked about the church being ready to invest money in the field of social housing, that we are capable of providing social services that the state ensures, and that our interest in this area has a long-term character," said the secretary of the bishops' conference. The Catholic Church had previously stated that it plans to invest hundreds of millions of crowns annually in social housing.
    According to Holub, he and Marksová agreed that the pilot projects for potential future collaboration could involve two or three social housing buildings. They would be established before the law on social housing is completed. The planned law should come into effect from 2017 according to government plans.
    Holub had previously stated that the level of investment depends on the legislative framework that will be provided. Therefore, the church wants to be part of the legislative process to influence its shape. Support for social housing aligns with the investment intentions declared by the church, meaning they must have an ethical dimension and long-term character. The Chairman of the Czech Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Dominik Duka, already signed a letter to Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka last October, in which he requested the involvement of representatives of the ČBK in the preparation of the law.
    According to Charity ČR, which is established by the Catholic Church, up to 100,000 people in the Czech Republic are at risk of losing their homes and poverty, family indebtedness exceeds a trillion crowns, and it is estimated that there are 40,000 homeless people. Catholic Charity has established hundreds of facilities from shelters to legal counseling since the 1990s. In recent years, however, the common trend of social housing found in the West is missing here due to the lack of legal security. The law must define what social housing is, which groups it concerns, and what support will be provided to those who supply social housing. The law must declare that it is a social service.
    However, it is not necessary to build new buildings for social housing; Charity ČR has drawn inspiration from foreign institutions and would like to facilitate contact between people and apartment owners who could provide social housing. Unlike abroad, however, charity obtains apartments more from private individuals than from municipalities.
    Currently, people in critical situations in their lives can use the services of a halfway house, but there are none for entire families, so when a family experiences financial distress, the mother goes with the children to one place, and the father goes to another. In a crisis, it is also necessary for the family to stay together, to start a new life; we want to accompany them for two or three years, helping them to resolve evictions, and even issues like the loss of a partner, representatives of charity state. The social housing program should also be attractive to property owners, especially in excluded locations. The non-profit organization guarantees them that they will not lose rental income. For instance, abroad there is a model where the state compensates property owners who provide apartments for social housing by supplementing the rent to a market level.