State Fund for Support of Youth Housing Construction (SFYH): an effective partnership with the Council of Europe Project

Serhii Komnatnyi, Chairman of the Board of SFYH, took part in the working process of the supervisory board of the Council of Europe Project “Internal Displacement in Ukraine: Development of Long-Term Solutions” implemented within the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2022 and the beginning of a new one, intended for 2021-2022.

The results of the previous activities of the Project were concluded online and the plan of further work was discussed. Lilia Gretarsdottir, International Project Coordinator, Council of Europe, Acting Head of the CoE Office in Ukraine Olena Lytvynenko and Deputy Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Inna Holovanchuk opened the event. There were meaningful speeches, in particular, by the project manager Anna Hristova.

Serhii Komnatnyi briefly outlined the general results of the Fund's cooperation with the Project and focused on the expectations from the continuation of cooperation. SFYH and the CoE Project, he noted, are linked by a three-year history of cooperation aimed at satisfying the needs of displaced persons as citizens of Ukraine for their own housing. During this time, more than 10 important joint events have been organized. The Fund's specialists had the opportunity to study the best experience of European countries and on this basis develop amendments to the legislation of Ukraine on affordable housing, adapted to the needs of IDPs.

New national housing program was created, designed, inter alia, for the mentioned category of persons. Twenty-five regional programs have been approved, which consider the needs of this category as residents of communities.

Thanks to joint work over the past few years, 1,123 IDP families have acquired housing under the SFYH Program. Further activities are considered the most promising in cooperation with both national and international partners. In particular, citizens have high expectations from the joint project, which will be implemented by SFYH, the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine and the German state bank KFW.

"A theoretical basis has been developed for the creation of sustainable solutions for the provision of housing for internally displaced persons, said Serhii Komnatnyi. - On this basis, the practical actions of Fund are built. It is clear that only within the framework of the Council of Europe Project we are not able to reconsider and propose a change in the philosophical and legal paradigm of housing policy in Ukraine. However from theoretical, developments must proceed to their practical implementation."

The head of the Fund outlined the main challenges in the housing sector, which remain relevant this year:

- the government lacks up-to-date, reliable and systematic data on the need of IDPs for housing;

- extremely insufficient financial resources for the implementation of housing programs;

- low activity of local self-government bodies in approving programs to assist IDPs in purchasing housing.

"With joint efforts, we need to find opportunities to overcome these challenges," said Serhii Komnatnyi, expressing his gratitude to the Council of Europe Project for its effective cooperation.