History and challenges of "social" rental housing in the Czech Republic

Martin Lux

Abstract:

The paper provides brief description of main housing policy features during the Communism and of main changes in the sphere of rental housing during the last decade in the Czech Republic. The emphasis is placed on critical evaluation of the current state in the municipal housing, as the "social" character of this kind of housing is very low. The differences between market rents in free private rental sector and controlled rents in municipal housing are shown, and the distribution of profits from rent regulation among lower and higher income household is described. The share of lower income households on total number of households living in municipal rent-controlled housing sector is not significantly higher than this share in the case of other tenures. Large share of higher income households prospers then from low level of rent prices. On the contrary, the young non-residing households, very often with very low income, are forced to live in market rental sector and do not obtain any state contribution or any tenant protection. The deficit of new social housing legislation and social housing construction strengthens the social tensions on housing market. Housing policy measures introduced or prepared by Czech authorities currently do not provide a guarantee for future positive change towards higher affordability of rental housing. According to the author the transformation of rental housing sector has been realised only partially up to now. The list of future challenges of social housing and necessary housing policy measures is provided and discussed.