Calcalist, Amitay Gazit, 04.04.2021

The state names Brex for public housing: From 2017 to now, 244 apartments intended for public housing have been included in residential tenders of the Israel Land Authority (RMI), only about 10% of what could be allocated to this issue, according to a Calcalist survey. At the same time, the number of people waiting for public housing increased by 46% during this period: in 2017, 2,870 households were waiting for such an apartment, and at the end of 2020, the number of people waiting was 4,208. The reason for the small number of apartments available is the Ministry of Finance's opposition to the Ministry of Housing's requests to add to the price tenders per occupant a requirement to build apartments for public housing.

Allocation of apartments for public housing involves the approval of the Planning and Development Committee, headed by Yair Pines, Director General of the Ministry of Housing, and members include a representative of the Ministry of Finance, the Accountant General of the Ministry of Finance and the Director General of Rami. So far the vast majority of applications submitted to the committee by the Ministry of Housing have been rejected by the committee. Since 2017, when the Israel Land Council decided to include public housing in real estate auctions, tenders that have been successfully marketed to construction companies have included 35,000 apartments at a price per occupant. So if the state were to realize 7% for public housing, that would mean 2,481 apartments for those eligible for public housing. In practice, the Ministry of Housing submitted dozens of applications that included a total of 1,724 apartments for public housing, but so far 1,017 apartments have not yet received the committee's approval and 194 apartments have been rejected outright. The committee approved only 513 apartments, of which only 244 were actually allocated in successfully marketed tenders, and 269 apartments are included in unpublished tenders.

"Finance abuses the weak"

It seems that the state has missed a golden opportunity to improve the public housing situation, because now even if the decision is fully implemented and 7% of the apartments are allocated, their number will be significantly reduced and there will be no apartments in demand areas close to employment areas. This is because at the beginning of the year, with the transition from a price per occupant to housing at a reduced price, the Treasury greatly reduced the number of apartments that will be allocated for marketing at a discounted price. The Ministry of Finance opposes in principle public housing, arguing that it is a mechanism that gives the eligible people a negative incentive to get out of the cycle of poverty, that the apartments are regularly transferred to the eligible and inherited to their children. The Ministry of Housing currently assists with rent for about 170,000 eligible people, and the Ministry of Finance prefers to use such a mechanism as much as possible, and to add tools and incentives that will enable and encourage those entitled to get out of poverty.

We are not at all surprised by the criminal conduct of the Ministry of Finance and RMI in everything related to public housing," says Danny Gigi, the policy promoter of the Public Housing Forum. "For years, the Treasury has been abusing the most vulnerable public who have difficulty finding shelter - the disabled, the elderly, single mothers - all in the name of ideological views of the ministry's policymakers who work against any assistance to the needy.

The Committee for the War on Poverty has determined that public housing is the most effective tool for getting people out of poverty and demonstrated that more than 40% of recipients of public housing no longer needed welfare services. We also know that poor families spend more than 70% of their income on housing, which reinforces the claim that only public housing will lift people out of poverty. The Ministry of Finance ignores the data and buries any plan for the rehabilitation of public housing, claiming that it is ineffective. "

Perpetual conqueror without a conductor

The Public Housing Law, Purchase Rights, came into force in 2014 and those entitled to purchase public housing apartments at discounts of up to 80% of the equivalent, which further reduced their number and exacerbated the distress. So far, 10,536 apartments have been sold and there are about 52.8 thousand apartments left in stock for those entitled to public housing, and about 12,000 apartments in 121 in old-age homes. At the same time, since the law was enacted, the state has purchased only about 2,800 new apartments.

The money that the state receives from the sale of the apartments is intended to be used to purchase new apartments, but the discounts on their sale make it possible to purchase only one new apartment for every 4-5 apartments sold. In the absence of other budget sources the Ministry of Housing will never be able to catch up with the shrinking inventory.