Building homes with heart
The new residential development currently under construction in Jabłonna, a suburb of Warsaw - with its roomy apartments and quality construction - is not your typical social-housing project. When one thinks of the booming residential market in Warsaw, chances are the first developments that come to mind are the upscale Holland Park, Złota 44, Ostoja Wilanów and the like. As building costs and profit margins soar, developers are maximizing their profits by targeting clients with the fattest wallets, leaving many middle- and lower-class Poles in the dust.
Hideous housing
Typical community housing programs have resulted in hideous blocks of concrete besmirching the landscape of large cities such as Warsaw. Most programs aimed at the lowest economic demographic provide the lowest standard of living. Programs such as the one pioneered by Ilona Kanclerz, an independent coordinator, aim to promote cooperation between various gminas on the outskirts of Warsaw and contractors willing to forgo profits in order to provide a much-needed service for the community's needy families.
Needy or not, Kanclerz believes every individual is entitled to a pleasant place to live. "In the current market climate, the developer dictates prices, which often drives figures up to 60 percent over the cost of investment - a pretty hefty profit, considering that investment costs are rising as well," she says.
Practical solutions
The program, based on public-private partnerships, is nonprofit. The developer makes nothing over the cost of investment, which is subsidized in part by the gmina. The price per sqm is kept to a bare minimum and rental prices for the apartments - which average 60 sqm in area in buildings of 23 storeys - come to about zł.400-500 per month.
The program looks to adopt novel construction technologies and practical solutions (like skimping on common areas such as lobbies and corridors) in order to provide attractive functional homes without losing out on features like living space and terraces.
The gmina arranges for a low-cost mortgage and at the end of about two years, the resident becomes the formal owner of the home. In the case of loss of work, the gmina also arranges for community work to be found for participants in the program so that they can still support their families and make their mortgage payments.
Expansion plans
Kanclerz plans to expand the program's activities to other regions in Poland and strongly believes in the potential success in bringing a higher standard of housing to Poles who would not otherwise have the chance to own their own home without the stigma that social housing usually entails.
"These are nothing like the French HLMs (habitation à loyer modéré) , which were a fine model for social housing until it became clear that overcrowding and lack of employment prospects among such a large population inevitably led to frustration and crime," says Kanclerz.
"There are several million people in this country who don't have homes, including middle-class working people," she adds. "Nearly half the population doesn't own a home - this includes the homeless as well as those living in multi-generational living arrangements, which are no longer the norm in Poland as it grows closer to the European standard of living, the middle class standard of living."
