VIDEO: Debate about housing with Czech Regional Development Minister discusses whether discrimination is the cause of all the housing problems experienced by Roma

How is the Act on Antidiscrimination being enforced in the Czech Republic today? Those and other questions were the subject of a ROMEA TV debate with Czech Regional Development Minister Ivan Bartoš, Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs Lucie Fuková, the director of the Romodrom organization Nikola Taragoš, and Miroslav Brož of the Konexe organization.

The debate focused on a bill for housing support that is to be submitted to the Government and on the problems preventing Romani people from accessing adequate housing. The debate was jointly organized by the ROMEA and Romodrom organizations.

Moderator Richard Samko opened the debate by introducing alarming numbers about the lack of access to housing in the Czech Republic affecting more than a million people, 61,000 of whom are children. He first asked the minister why the Czech Republic is unable to cope with the 20 towns that have the biggest housing problems.

Ivan Bartoš: We are preparing housing reform, and one tool will be the housing support law

Minister Bartoš said his priority is housing reform “for life”, which includes not just building more housing, but also a law on housing support that should aid people who have problems accessing housing or who are at risk of losing their housing. “The aim is for this to be both systematic and well-targeted so we can actually aid people, both in the area of social housing for that group into which more than 1.3 million people keep falling, and for those who are at risk of losing their housing during some life phase through no fault of their own. We want there to be instruments at the municipality and municipal department level which would prioritize the units for those most in need and prevent the situation of people ending up in shelters or in units which are owned by the traffickers in poverty,” he explained.

According to Minister Bartoš, there will be two main tools for addressing lack of access to housing: Contact centers for housing which would provide advice and aid to people in housing crisis, and an increase in the number of units for groups in need, who would be connected with housing providers, whether municipal or private. Bartoš also emphasized that the housing support bill he is proposing would yield billions of crowns in savings because it would lower expenditures for compensatory care, prisons, social services and other current costs.

Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs Lucie Fuková said the housing law is crucial to the Romani minority in the Czech Republic. Her main interest is to make sure it will aid in solving the housing insecurity with which Romani people struggle daily.

“As part of the commenting procedure, I drew attention to the fact that ethnic minority specifics should be part of eligibility for support under the law,” she said.

Taragoš: Let’s introduce a housing ombudsperson

According to Nikola Taragoš, director of the Romodrom organization, adopting a housing law is quite an important aspect of change in this field. Taragoš said the area of housing is a crucial element of stability for families and individuals.

At the same time, however, he expressed concerns about bringing the law into practice. “The area of housing has become a politically exposed matter for municipalities, municipal departments, regions, etc., and we have to deal with that. For that reason, in my opinion, control mechanisms are important, and the better they will be defined, the better access people will have to the system,” Taragoš said, who is also suggesting the creation of another mechanism, specifically, a housing ombudsman to provide expert support to the ministries.

“The ombudsman should be a specialist in this area, he should have practical experience in it, and he could prepare background materials for the ministries for them to revoke measures or negotiate about them,” said Taragoš, emphasizing that such a law would have a broader impact on the areas of education and employment because it has the potential to effectively solve problems in those areas as well.

Is discrimination the cause of Romani people’s poor housing situation?

Miroslav Brož of the Konexe organization stressed that the new housing law would just address the consequences of the problem, not its real causes, which in his view are discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and the fact that the Act on Antidiscrimination is not being upheld. “Why are Romani people unable, with just a few exceptions, to find themselves proper housing in the Czech Republic? The reason, simply put, is ethnic discrimination. If you call in response to an advertisement for housing and introduce yourself with a Romani name, they will reject you. The same thing happens if you call a real estate agent, they will openly tell you that they do not rent to Roma irrespective of whether the family is respectable or not,” he said.

According to Brož, the state is insufficiently sanctioning violations of the Act on Antidiscrimination. He went on to say that prosecuting discriminatory practices and enforcing the law would be a more effective solution than building apartment units for municipal departments or contact centers.

Bartoš agreed that discrimination against Romani people on the housing market exists, but asserted that no law can eliminate prejudice. “These biases are built up over generations, they are emotions, and we cannot help ourselves against an emotion with a law,” he claimed.

Fuková then said the discrimination of Romani people is an enormous problem and that the anti-Romani attitudes of society in the Czech Republic are behind it. “If society were not so set against Roma, then we wouldn’t even need a housing support law, from the Roma perspective,” she asserted.

“The problem with accessing housing is not just about impoverished Roma, but also well-positioned Roma who have jobs and even a high position in society. I myself have had a problem with accessing housing. That means there are also Romani people living in the socially excluded localities who are employed, who are doing quite well, including even in terms of their position in society, otherwise – however, they are unable to access any other kind of housing than what is available in socially excluded localities,” she explained.

Discrimination against Romani people in the area of housing was also called a basic problem by the director of the Agency for Social Inclusion, Martin Šimáček. “If we are speaking of the institutional discrimination against Romani people when it comes to housing, this is actually one of the basic problems preventing Romani people from accessing housing. This crucial problem arose during the 1990s as a consequence of the privatizations which were messed up, first by Czechoslovakia and then by the Czech Republic. To this day there exist dozens or rather hundreds of municipalities that discriminate against Roma institutionally. This is also a market problem, but at the same time, be careful, we have to realize that the situation of people in excluded localities, whether they are Roma or not, is so complex after all these decades that to relocate such a person from there into normal housing is a problem for all involved. We have to say that straight out,” Šimáček said during the discussion with the audience.

According to David Beňák, director of the Department of Social Integration at the Czech Labor and Social Affairs Ministry, discrimination on the housing market should be prosecuted, but the antidiscrimination law has quite a low enforcement rate. “Some case law does exist. It’s not true that there are no such judgments, they do exist, but there are very few of them because some lawsuits were settled out of court,” he said.

The debate with Bartoš was the third held by ROMEA and Romodrom, which are inviting ministers from the current Government to participate in discussions on Romani-related issues. The first such debate was held in Prague with Czech Interior Minister Vít Rakušan and the next was held in Brno with Czech Justice Minister Pavel Blažek.