Social Housing Initiatives as chance for your own apartment in times of crisis.

The housing needs of Polish society are still enormous & the current level of their satisfaction is insufficient. The present, difficult times of the post-pandemic crisis, intensified by “putinflation” and the war in Ukraine, exacerbated the housing deficit that has existed for years. Social Housing Initiatives will be a remedy in this situation?

CEO of Inventory of Governmental Properties, Arkadiusz Urban: The government program of Social Housing Initiatives (SIM) implemented by National Property Stock is directly tailored to today’s times of the post-pandemic crisis and “putinflation”. Times when more and more people lose their creditworthiness but still have rent capacity. During the year since we are implementing this new program, we have established, in cooperation with local governments, 30 SIMs with the participation of over 350 municipalities. For most of them, it is also a great opportunity to implement local anti-depopulation, dignity and pro-development policies. Small and medium-sized municipalities without the government assistance offered by National Property Stock would often not be able to satisfy their most basic housing needs. Moreover, the SIM project offering the construction of apartments for rent with a moderate rent with the option of coming to ownership is a program aimed at sustainable development and equal opportunities for the Polish population, regardless of the place of residence. This is because it gives the inhabitants of smaller centers the opportunity to pursue the same life plans as the inhabitants of larger cities. It is also an important element of raising their standard of living in the place of residence, and for many a chance to get out of a difficult living situation by creating the possibility of obtaining ownership of their apartment. It is worth remembering that the Social Housing Initiatives undertake the construction of apartments not for profit, but to achieve the goal, i.e. to build apartments for rent, with an option of purchase, with a moderate rent. Therefore, we are still observing a growing interest on the part of other communes. We estimate that even every second commune in Poland, which means about 1-1.2 thousand communities, may be included in the SIM program. So we are actually 1/3 of the way in the implementation of the Social Housing Initiatives program. Importantly, we made the “first shovel” on the investment with the participation of National Property Stock already in June this year. We would like to keep this pace, because already this year we will have building permits for approx. 4 thousand apartments, and next year about 8-10 thousand. For comparison, it is worth adding that so far only a few of the largest developers in Poland have built approx. 3,000 apartments per year.