By Zlata Vuksanović-Macura
During their secondments in Serbia, the DASH team members had the opportunity to visit several social housing projects in Čačak as guests of the City Housing Agency of Čačak (CHAC). On arrival, the team was greeted by the Deputy Mayor at the City Hall, where he provided a brief overview of the city’s history and highlighted its recent developments.
Credits for images: DASH project 2024
At the City Hall, the discussion revolved around the Čačak city authorities’ social housing provision and possibilities to extend future cooperation. After this first meeting, the DASH team visited the neighborhoods of Košutnjak, Ljubić Kej and Obrež. The social housing projects in these neighbourhoods were all developed as partnerships between the state, the local government, and foreign donors. The land for construction and communal infrastructure was provided by the city of Čačak, while the main donors were the Government of the Republic of Italy and the Government of Japan (in the neighbourhood of Košutnjak), the Regional Housing Program (Ljubić Kej) and the European Union (Obrež). CHAC was in charge of construction, maintenance, and management of the units – including stipulating contracts with residents and collecting rents.
You can hear more about the role of the City Housing Agency from Zlata.
Rental social housing
The DASH team first visited the neighbourhood of Košutnjak, located near the right bank of the Morava river, about 1.5 km from the city center. Brankica Jelić, CHAC director, presented the main traits of the project’s social rental housing model , which was developed to accommodate families of former refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (who moved to Serbia after the breakup of Yugoslavia), war invalids and their families, as well as a smaller number of socially-vulnerable populations from Čačak. The city owns the apartments, and the tenants lease them from the city. The DASH team members had the opportunity to visit one of the buildings and talk to several tenants about the apartments’ quality and facilities, housing costs, and the advantages and disadvantages of this type of social housing. Tenants emphasized their good living conditions.
Highly subsidized purchase of apartments
The next housing project visited by the DASH team is located about 2 km from the city centre in the neighbourhood of Ljubić Kej, near the left bank of the Morava river. The residential building was built as part of the Regional Housing Programme. The tenants there are exclusively families of former refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina who have now been living in the territory of the City of Čačak for many years. After moving in, the tenants were allowed to buy apartments at a significantly subsidized price. DASH team members were particularly interested in discussing the differences between social housing options (projects) in terms of the criteria that allow tenants to buy, or prevent them from buying, apartments.
Here you can watch Els pointing out these differences.
Rental housing and active inclusion measures
The third location visited by members of the DASH team is in the neighbourhood of Obrež, about 5 km from the city centre (10 minutes’ drive). Tenants here are vulnerable families: single parents with children, youths leaving the social protection system, women victims of domestic violence, vulnerable Roma families, and persons with disabilities. Tenants pay utility costs and a highly-subsidized rent. In addition to the apartments, the buildings have common rooms that are used for social activities and for holding meetings of the tenants’ council. The uniqueness of this project compared to previous ones lies in its implementation of active inclusion measures, which include the provision of psycho-social support, economic empowerment, free legal aid, preventive medical examinations, and the provision of household items such as furniture and appliances, bicycles and laptops.
The importance of these social inclusion measures was also pointed out by Dejan.
