On April 22, young and large families protested against the government's failure to fulfill obligations on payment of housing subsidies under the program Affordable Housing for Young People in the cities of Yugra. About 100 people took part in the action.
The program objective is to help young families in need of better housing conditions. It consists of three parts — federal, district and municipal.
"I have been waiting since 2010," said one of the participants of the rally, Gulnara Guseynova. "No one warned me that it would take such a long time to wait for a loan and that the conditions would change."
Thousands of Yugra people were excluded from the program when they turned 36 years old. According to one of the protesters, a single mother, mortgage interest rates are unaffordable for her, and banks do not consider the possibility of refinancing. The woman is in a debt pit, and there won’t be any help coming.
According to the protesters, authorities have been giving nothing but promises for many years, explaining it by the lack of funds in the district budget. Appeals to the president and the governor had no effect — just run-arounds.
Workers of the organizations, financed from the district budget, came to support the families.
It is the second mass rally in Nefteyugansk. The first one was held on March 16, on the eve of the presidential elections in Russia. After this rally, the district governor Natalia Komarova invited activists to a video conference.
"In the course of the dialogue with the governor, it turned out that she was not aware of many issues inside this program," says the activist and organizer of the rally, Olga Vasilyeva. "Once again she promised to sort out the situation. Her proposal for refinancing has not found banks’ response. It is not profitable for them."
Residents promise: if there is no response from the government of Yugra, in the near future they will block the local section of the federal highway. Authorities of the city administration did not attend the rally.
Young and large families demanded to:
1. Revise and amend the regulatory legal acts of KhMAO – Yugra that regulate the implementation of subprogramme-2 Affordable Housing for Young People, where restoration of participants excluded from the sub-program at the age of 36 years should be provided; inclusion of the requirement on the deadline for the fulfillment of the obligation to provide a subsidy, as well as the obligations of Mortgage Agency of Yugra.
2. Conduct an adjustment of the Single List of Participants and exclude people who have not purchased a dwelling in due time, and also place transparent information on the execution of the program on the official website.
3. Revise the amount of funding for the implementation of subprogram-2 Affordable Housing for Young People to eliminate the arrears in payment of the subsidy.
4. Conduct inspections on the financing and allocation of funds under the subprogram Affordable Housing for Young People and bring to justice those responsible for the ineffective implementation of the KhMAO – Yugra laws.
5. Provide support in the form of a district refinancing program for participants in subprogramme 2, Affordable Housing for Young People, who were expelled from the list by age limit.
6. Consider the possibility of paying a subsidy in the order of transferring funds to the account of a participant opened with a credit institution under a mortgage agreement.
The program "Affordable Housing for Young People" has been operating in KhMAO since 2006. The district authorities pledged to pay subsidies for the purchase of housing for families with children and to compensate part of the interest rate on mortgage loans. Now more than 24 thousand families are waiting for payments. Each of them counts on an average of 1 million rubles. However, the authorities gradually reduced the funding of the program: in 2015 it was about 3 billion rubles, and in 2018 – only 109 million rubles. According to plans, in the next years the government will allocate 107 million rubles. This means that only about 100 families will be paid in a year. In 2018, subsidies will be paid to families that have officially become participants in the program in 2010. Most will have to repay previously taken mortgage loans without the promised support.
On April 4, participants in the program "Affordable Housing for Young People" in Yugra published a video message to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Alexandra Bazhenova, photo of the author, video of the author and organizers, «7x7»