Fiasco. In this, already rather elegant way, the NIK describes the results of the Housing Plus program . The number of apartments built drastically deviates from the assumptions. The Chamber assesses the actions of those in power extremely unfavorably, while praising local governments for it. And it sounds an alarm: 640,000 apartments are needed in Poland for nearly two million people. Instead, there is no mention of the quality of architecture.
This was supposed to be a remedy for the housing deficit for citizens who can't afford to buy an apartment or take out a loan to buy one. With them in mind, the Housing Plus program was announced with pomp in 2016. Thanks to it, the construction of affordable apartments for rent or for rent with access to ownership after at least a dozen years was to start. The first apartments were built in the village of Siedlemin near Jarocin in 2018. Subsequent developments were put into operation in Walbrzych, Biała Podlaska and Kepno, among others. Construction also started in Krakow and Katowice, as well as Świdnik, Debica, Łowicz and Radom.
colossal differences
The government announced that 100,000 apartments would be built under Housing Plus by the end of 2019. However, the Supreme Audit Office examined the results and published them in the audit results announced last Wednesday (detailed document available: here). What do we learn? Only 15.3 thousand housing units have been built. Another 20.5 thousand are under construction (as of October 2021). The NIK further reports that
in the last eight years, the share of housing units that would serve the needs of average and low-income earners averaged only 2.5 percent of the new housing stock. In 2020, compared to 2018, the number of people declaring housing problems increased (from 44 percent in 2018 to 63 percent in 2020).
Material from the document FUNCTIONING THE MONEY PLUS PROGRAM.
Source: NIK
The auditors emphasize that one of the two goals of the National Housing Program (which is implemented with the help of Housing Plus), namely to improve the situation of people with low incomes or in a particularly difficult life situation, has hardly been achieved. The difference between intentions and reality is drastic.
Since the beginning of the social rental housing program, i.e. from 2015 to the end of the first quarter of 2021, 735 moderate rental units have been built against a projected 72,500 by the end of 2025, and 4566 units have been built with the help of a preferential loan against 30,000 assumed by the end of 2025.
Whose fault?
What reasons for the failure are given by the NIK? Basically - no surprises. These include
the lack of effective and consistent with each other legal solutions, as well as tardiness in the implementation of executive acts.
The NIK also points to the difficulty of acquiring land for construction, which was the task of the National Property Resource established in 2017. In this case, the intentions were half-heartedly achieved:
150 properties (with a total area of 949 hectares) out of the 271 planned for the period were taken over into the Resource, which accounted for 55 percent of the plan.
Here the reasons included obstruction by other institutions (the report mentions the Military Property Agency and the National Center for Agricultural Support) or inaccurate information about the resources planned for development (e.g., no information on filed claims).
three years without effect
Moreover, until 2020, KZN did not have adequate legal authority.
As a result, the (...) did not allocate any property from the resource for housing or for the implementation of technical development of the land for nearly three years.
The NIK also points to poor government oversight of the NSC's operation. The Chamber's only warm words are directed at the eight municipalities audited:
They defined the criteria and rules of priority for the use of apartments being built under the Housing Plus program, and reliably conducted and supervised the process of recruiting tenants. They also effectively obtained funds from the Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego for the tenants of these apartments, for subsidies to housing costs incurred.
The report also reminds us of sad statistics: 37 percent of Poles live in overcrowded apartments (against an EU average of 18 percent). The situation is even worse for people between the ages of 25 and 34. As many as 45.1 percent live in overcrowded housing (EU average: 28.6 percent). Rather predictably, the NIK does not provide information on the quality, aesthetics and and functionality of the commissioned architecture. Nor does it mention the logic behind the placement of individual investments. Instead, it makes recommendations to the Minister of Development and Technology, the president of the NZN and the executive bodies of municipalities. He also notes that:
in order to reach the EU level of housing financing from the state budget, annual spending on housing should reach about PLN 10 billion.
Meanwhile, in 2019 it was PLN 1.2 billion, and the year before: 2.1 billion.
