UNHCR Analyzes the Efficiency of Affordable Housing Programme
During the meeting of Chairman of the Fund’s Board Serhii Komnatnyi with representatives of UNHCR Representation in Ukraine – Senior Development Advisor Igor Chantefort and Durable Solutions Officer Anita Rohner a spectrum of issues related to the work completion over the evaluation report Affordable Housing Programme for IDPs was discussed.
First Deputy Chairman of the Fund’s Board Ivan Parukh, members of the Board Elvira Levchenko and Serhii Koshelenko, as well as Director of the Mortgage Center in Kyiv and Kyiv region Mykola Marchuk took part in the meeting.
Having stated that the study of IDPs’ thoughts regarding Affordable Housing assists in making the Fund’s activities more effective, Serhii Komnatnyi and the UNHCR representatives expressed their wishes concerning further joint work.
Last week 148 agreements on participation in the programme were signed all over Ukraine with the families, this week there will be 51 family more. The leader of the Fund mentioned: the financing volume of given programme doesn’t correspond to the scale of housing problem of the Ukrainian citizens, in particular, those of IDPs and ATO participants. It’s necessary to elaborate the housing programme for IDPs who are less active in economic terms due to objective reasons. But it goes beyond the official powers of the State Fund for Support of Youth Housing Construction whose programmes are aimed at economically active citizens and are tasked to stimulate the development of country’s economy.
The Chairman of the Fund’s Board suggested considering the mechanism of housing purchase by IDPs under Affordable Housing programme with the use of second envisaged mechanism – l oans under 7% interest rate with first installment of 10% of apartment cost. This, in Mr. Komnatnyi’s opinion, will extend the circle of real housing applicants due to those who are unable to pay 50% of its cost. In case of filling this mechanism with funds in amount of UAH 1 bln, in the first year already we could provide 2,5 thousand Ukrainian families with their own housing. And then the loans refunding would be directed at new borrowers’ financing.
The results of survey of IDPs’ families participating in Affordable Housing programme being administered by the Fund conducted by the UNHCR prove the priority of housing programmes for the citizens. The survey showed that only 1% of the programme’s participants didn’t express trust towards the Fund’s work.
Obtained results will become a substantial component of argumentation concerning the importance of housing programmes for IDPs and other categories of citizens and necessity to upgrade the level of public services in the sphere of providing people with affordable housing.
Full results of the survey will be provided soon.