A two-day seminar on international best practice on social housing between representatives of local government, experts, civil society and the international community was held on 4 and 5 December in Sarajevo.
The seminar agreed that there is a need for 30.000 new housing units in BiH. Within this project, 62 new apartments will now be built across six municipalities. The seminar also presented the experience of social housing in Austria (which also has one of the most developed models of social housing in Europe), Croatia and Serbia.
“The EU has provided 1 mill Euro to assist in the development of an integrated housing system in BiH. The project will not only work at the policy level but will also provide concrete social housing solutions to 62 families in six municipalities. We hope that these social housing solutions will become best practice that can be replicated in other parts of the country. For this to be achieved, close co-operation with all relevant partners is needed as well as support in addressing the other needs of socially vulnerable households, including access to education, health care services, employment or minimum levels of benefits”, said Holger Schroeder, Head of Operations in Delegation of the EU to BiH.
“Our Ministry wants to see a single co-ordinating mechanism at all levels of authority in BiH, and, primarily wants, to find the best legislative solutions. We want to incorporate the experiences of those who have passed through it so we do not make the same mistakes. We are very pleased that we have established decisive co-operation with the European Commission and that we co-operate on almost all projects in this field. I think we have made a good start because we are building homes for socially disadvantaged people across BiH. It is important to say that only the beginning was conceived like this as we want to expand this segment also to the young people, who are preparing for independent life and do not have housing issues solved” said Damir Ljubic, BiH Minister for Human Rights and Refugees.
This seminar is part of the project “Social Housing System – Development of an Integrated Model in Theory and Practice”, which is being implemented with EU financial support in order to achieve social stability by improving social protection system.
The total value of the project is 1.68 mill Euro for whose implementation the EU allocated 1 mill Euro.
