Housing standards, in accordance with research conducted in the European Union (EU) countries, are usually analysed within the context of the overall living conditions of households and include analyses of the development of household consumer behaviour, the financial affordability of housing and the efficiency and effectiveness of the state’s housing policy. The similar projects are also based on the creation of broadly used reports describing and assessing the current situation and suggesting practical steps for its improvement („Conditions de vie“ in Données Sociales published every three years since 1973 by INSEE, the French Statistical Office, Housing Finance Review published every two years by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in co-operation with the Chartered Institute of Housing in Great Britain). In many cases the practical impact of similar analytical materials and particularly their recommendations tends to be unequivocal because these reports are outlined in such a manner so as to make the problems in question intelligible to all representatives of individual interest groups or responsible authorities.
Following the successful practice implemented in the EU countries the purpose of the project was to provide comprehensive analyses of the financial affordability of housing and housing expenditures in connection with general changes in the consumer behaviour of the Czech households; analyses of the social effectiveness and economic efficiency of current and potential housing policy instruments directed towards increasing financial affordability of housing (social housing, housing allowances); analyses of the social and economic consequences of existing or potential supplementary state interventions influencing housing standards of Czech households (the residential environment regeneration, civil/tenant participation in housing administration, modernisation of housing, private-public partnership in housing services or social housing). The objective of the project was also through reports under the working title Housing Standards and the Possibilities of their Growth printed annually for the term of three years on the one hand to describe, as accurately as possible, current housing standards (while always taking into account the research priorities set for particular year of the project), on the other hand through the comprehensive simulation modelling to discover the economic efficiency and social effectiveness of different housing policy instruments and using the knowledge of experience gained by EU countries, draw attention to housing standard growth potentials.
Project publications (total 12, displaying 1 - 10)
The first part of the paper introduces the Department of Economic Sociology, and the second part presents an example of the research team’s outcome, published in the study “Housing Standards 2002/03: Financial Affordability and Attitudes towards Housing”. The third, empirical part of the paper describes the distribution of three selected housing subsidies among households of different income levels as a sample evaluation of the effectiveness of these subsidies.
Abstract
The authors aim to propose more effective design of housing subsidies in the Czech Republic. In the first part of the publication was made an attempt to assess housing shortage in the Czech Republic, next follows the comparison of first- and second generation rent control, social housing and housing allowance. The authors tried to propose the best design of second generation rent control, social housing and housing allowance for the CR.
abstract
The article examines housing allowance models as an important tool of social and housing policies, used as such in most EU countries. Some drawbacks of the current system are mentioned, especially the fact that the real housing costs, as paid by households, are disregarded in the calculation, thus endangering the social justice of such housing allowance model. In this respect, a draft of a new concept of rent allowance is outlined.
The chapter describes the main elements of demand and supply of market-based housing finance in transitional countries during 1990 – 2001. The main obstacles to further development of the systems are specified.
Using data from representative survey Housing Attitudes 2001 the author analyses the opinons of the Czech population on the situation in the housing market and general attitudes towards housing-related issues and housing policy. Connestions between attitudes and respondents’ positions in the housing market. On the bases of the results of the analyses the usefullness of the theory of the housing classes in the Czech context is discussed.
The aim of the article was to describe, using multi-dimensional statistical methods and structure modelling, the process that produces housing satisfaction in the Czech Republic and to trace the main factors behind its variability. The article draws on data from the Housing Attitude 2001 survey.
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