Current conditions of social housing in Slovakia

Jaroslava Zapletalová

Institute of Housing, L.t.d.

Bratislava

Slovak Republic

E-mail: instbyv@psgnetba.sk

Abstract:

When evaluating the current state of housing in Slovakia and its accessibility for lower income groups it is necessary to go back to the situation in housing sector after the revolution in 1990 and recall several points:

  • system of financing and subsidy policy of housing and renovation of the housing stock, including social housing;
  • ways and outcomes of public finance investment – subsidy policy and its influence on the quality and quantity of the construction; efficiency of spending of the funds and basic ways of investments;
  • housing stock management system, including social housing;
  • types of ownership of the housing stock, position of the owners and their influence on the housing stock management; housing of various types of social groups / social differentiation issue;
  • regulatory measures and their impact.

Based on the comparison of the data and information from the previous period with the current information, the recent development in the field in the past ten years will be presented along with usefulness and absence of transformation measures. The presentation will focus on the following areas that have to do with the provision of housing for lower income groups.

  • Gradual privatization of the housing stock, reasons and ways of implementation; changes in the ownership of the housing stock, pros and cons of such process, implications for low income groups; development in financing and subsidy policy into the housing; recent development in the construction of new housing units and renovation of the housing stock; results of the recent investment of the public funds into the construction of new housing units (existence of the State Fund of Housing Development and other support programs), efficiency of their investment, impact on the ownership structure, impact on the housing accessibility for lower income groups.
  • Management of housing stock, institutional forms of provision.
  • Role and position of the local government and NGOs of the public and private sectors, legal issues related to the form of individual types of investment and management companies; transformation of the state management companies; role and position of the entrepreneur organizations and their establishing body, housing cooperatives / impact of the transformation law and their current situation, absence of non-for profit management within the public sector, system of assignment of housing units, position and forms of management companies and their relation to the various types of owners of the housing stock; impact of the recent changes on the lower income groups; ways of implementation of regulatory measures (state, municipality).
  • Recent development in the price policy, non-existence of the tax policy, implementation of the current regulatory measures and its impact on the state and the citizen; development of investment costs and prices for housing (rent and payments for the services related to housing), increasing discrepancy between the price for a new construction and the ability of the citizens to pay for their housing (payment items), reserves in the state regulatory measures (state regulation policy of the subsidies into the housing / targeted programs) reserves in the usage of the housing stock (consumption basket and payments for housing – composition of the individual items, possibilities and needs for change from the perspective of the state and the citizen).
  • Introduction of the Housing Allowance program as of January 2000, recent experience and ways of modification of its implementation.
  • Alternatives of the further procedure.
  • Future possibilities of provision of housing for lower income groups and other protected groups; recent ambiguities and setbacks (legislation, executive bodies, institutional arrangement) that impede the creation of fully fledged housing market and a possibility of protection of the socially disadvantaged groups in the current conditions and environment; issues dealing with the upcoming decentralization of the competencies and modernization of the public administration including the ways and forms of planned development on individual levels, goals of the state and local housing policy and Agenda Habitat.