Housing Europe President visits Poland and the Czech Republic

In touch with members

Prague, Warsaw, 13 March 2015 | Published in Urban

The President of Housing Europe, Marc Calon has continued in March his series of visits to the member organisations. Following his trip to Rome to visit Federcasa and ahead of his Talinn visit, Marc visit our Czech and Polish members.

On 18th Feb Marc Calon met Vít Vaníček President of the Union of Czech and Moravian Co-operative Housing (SCMBD) for an update on the Housing situation in Czech Republic and the Role of cooperative housing. The SCMBD represents advises and protects the interests of member organizations which include 635 housing cooperatives, representing about 20% of the total housing property of the country. Vit is also currently the President of the Co-operative Association of the Czech Republic.

In Poland Housing Cooperative stock covers 2,3 million homes. Marc Calon & Sorcha Edwards HE President and SecGen visited the headquarters of the representative body of the movement the Auditing Union of Housing Co-operatives activity (ZRSM RP) in Warsaw and were received by Jerzy Jankowski the President and Tomasz Jórdeczka the Chairman of the Supervisory Board. ZRSM RP informed of legislation under preparation in Poland which threatens to undermine Polish Housing Cooperatives.

The HE delegation the position that the role of the state is to ensure the right regulatory and financial environment which facilitates and supports the development of a diverse housing market adapted to the diverse needs in any society. This means diversity of tenure including cooperative, rental, private and social housing and diversity of size and characteristics of housing adapted to needs of different social and age groups. In particular the state should work to ensure that housing systems promote competitiveness by ensuring workers can find affordable accommodation near their work places and social inclusion by avoiding the generation of ghettoization of less well-off groups.

The Polish Union informed of the on-going work on the professionalization of the sector through the establishment of a Certificate for Cooperative Real Estate Managers and also expressed a great interest in the Responsible Housing Initiatives which Housing Europe is working on together with the International Union of Tenants. HE looks forward to the continuation of constructive collaboration between our organisations.