Bratislava will establish a Municipal Housing Agency

The city is launching a new service - the Municipal Housing Agency (MNA) - which seeks to improve the availability of housing for people who, for a variety of reasons, experience disadvantage in the standard housing market. The agency will function as a liaison between landlords and tenants and will also guarantee the tenancy agreement. The new service will be launched in a pilot stage at the beginning of 2023, when, in association with our partners, the Kooperativa Foundation and Slovenská sporiteľňa bank, we will provide the first two flats to families in need. Over the coming year, we will accommodate at least ten households. Social rental agencies are well established in various European countries. They have proven themselves in Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, and the Czech Republic. The City of Bratislava is the first municipality in Slovakia to launch this innovative tool.

The capacity building of rental housing and increasing the availability of housing is based on the strategic material Urban Housing Policy Concept 2020 - 2030. The city's ambition is to systematically improve the situation in the rental housing sector, hence the older housing stock is being renewed. New city flats are being built, in a closer cooperation with the private sector.

"Ensuring affordable housing for socially vulnerable groups is a priority of the city's housing policy. We have a successful Housing First project aimed at ending homelessness. We see that, once housing is provided, the economic, social and health situation of clients is stabilised. We are now launching another tool - the Municipal Housing Agency - which will focus on supporting the disadvantaged in the housing market. We are expanding the housing stock through the construction of new flats, and we also want to build a portfolio of rental flats for discriminated and more vulnerable groups," explains Lenka Antalová Plavuchová, Deputy Mayor.

The Municipal Housing Agency will operate as a platform for landlords who are willing to rent their properties out to at-risk residents. These include single parents, families with more children and lower income, or individuals with a history of housing needs who are struggling to access rental housing available in the mainstream. The Municipal Housing Agency assumes the potential risks associated with rental and maintenance. Landlords can be assured of a stable income for the flat and, last but not least, the socially responsible dimension can also be a motivating factor.

The Municipal Housing Agency in practice

The Municipal Housing Agency will launch the pilot stage in association with the Kooperativa Foundation and Slovenská sporiteľňa bank. The main landlord at the beginning of the MNA project will be the company Dostupný domov, founded by the bank, the Slovak Investment Holding and Slovenská sporiteľňa Foundation. Dostupný domov will lease a total of ten flats in Bratislava during the course of 2023. The MNA project operation will be financially supported by Slovenská sporiteľňa bank and the Kooperativa Foundation.

"We believe that through affordable housing we can significantly improve the future of socially disadvantaged people and their families. Decent housing is a prerequisite for getting and keeping a job, a chance to study and develop safely, and financial health. That is why, together with SIH, we have set up the company Dostupný domov and will purchase about four hundred flats in Slovakia in the coming years, in which thousands of people will find a new home. We are launching a pilot project in Bratislava, and we want to help the city we live and do business in to launch a functioning social housing agency," says Juraj Barta, Slovenská sporiteľňa’s Board member.

In addition to the bank, the Slovenská sporiteľňa Foundation has also joined the MNA project, as part of its long-term strategy to support the homelessness situation and to help disadvantaged groups of the population who are at risk of losing their homes. The Foundation will support the functioning of the new MNA with €25,000 for the agency's annual staff costs.

"We realise that owning your own home is not a given. In collaboration with our partners, we are launching a pilot programme for families from the city's dormitories that will introduce new housing options. The project has only just begun, but we hope to see more and more families joining every month. The Kooperativa Foundation will make a financial contribution of €40,000 to the families to help them pay their rent. At the same time, a fund will be set up as an instrument to help maintain housing in crisis situations that may lead to short-term financial distress. The fund will also provide financial contributions for medicine, school supplies, extra-curricular activities, etc.," says Vladimír Bakeš, Chair of the Board of Kooperativa Foundation and Chair of the Board and CEO of KOOPERATIVA Insurance Company.

Initially the MNA will work mainly with the city's accommodation facilities, in particular the Fortuna dormitory. The flats will primarily be offered to families who, without support, would not be able to secure housing on their own from what is commercially available, are at risk of housing destitution or would have to wait too long for a city flat. Clients will pay a discounted rent in the flats compared with normal commercial rents.

"Single mothers, large families, Roma families, seniors or individuals who have experienced housing need - these people often face various forms of discrimination when looking for housing, and landlords tend to evaluate them as high-risk. At the beginning of the new service, we will be selecting people who have been living, for example, in our city dormitory, which is a temporary solution rather than the full-time home that these people need. Clients will pay their own rent and will also be provided with a professional social service to help them maintain stable housing and set up a family budget. The MNA is a tool for becoming self-sufficient and preventing housing loss. Any such tool is important because it also contributes to relieving the burden on the social system," says Sergej Kára, Head of Social Affairs Department at the City Hall.

The MNA will begin housing the first two households at the beginning of next year. The process of selecting the first clients from the Fortuna City Dormitory is currently underway. The selection process takes into account the family's situation, duration of stay in the city's accommodation facility, medical conditions, overall level of need and ability to pay the rent, as part of the pilot phase.

The MNA plans to serve a minimum of ten households in 2023. The pilot phase will be evaluated on an ongoing basis in order to subsequently expand the service and to include public landlords through a call for applications, so that the service can be opened up to a wider range of applicants.

Further information can be found on the Municipal Housing Agency's ↗︎.