Social Housing in Serbia: Dual Approach

Abstract

Examining Serbian housing policy in the past two decades which has been radically transfered from the communist version of "welfare state" to the neoliberal concept of housing market, this paper firstly identifies major subjects and activities in the field of social housing and systematizes kinds of action related to these activities. Sudden state’s withdrawal from the housing matter, followed by the lack of land regulations and permanent economic crisis, caused almost unsolvable problem of adequate provision of housing for the most of the population in Serbia. The initial course, performed through privatisation of 98 % of public housing stock at the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century, took place apart from the few other housing policy initiatives and processes that were unconformably to each other. The state successively abandoned introduction of housing policy, untill it almost ran short of its institutional and active capacities that had been developing by decades in communism. Until 2004 housing policy was trying to achieve short-dated political aims, but since then, the need for introducton of new systematic housing solutions, including social housing above all, emerged. Serbian government began to act in two separate ways, although without yet astablished long-term national housing policy: First was to try to support, financially and legislatively, production of affordable housing, so called "cheap flats" for subsidized sale; and the other was to try to establish public rented housing, but this time based on economic sustainability instead of general social equity proclaimed in communism. Several projects of "cheap flats" for subsidized sale have been developed, while some of them are stlill under construction, or in the planing stage. On the other side, the initial impulse for public rented housing foundation in Serbia was the 15 milion euros pilot project – Settlement and Integration of Refugees Programme (SIRP 2003-2008.) – financed by the Italian government, that was realized in seven Serbian municipalities. Thus, first non-profit Public Housing Agencies in Serbia were established, and new public housing stock was built and inhabited. Considering serbian social housing policy in general and highlighting some of their characteristics related to several projects, this study focuses on both of these two recognized courses by analisys and critic review of achieved results.