How the right to housing is guaranteed in the USSR: 1985

Rusanovka housing estate in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, 1980 -- At the time this was a newly constructed housing estate.

A look at the Soviet Union's remarkable and humanistic housing policy -- that included constitutional guarantees -- from Socialism; Theory and Practice in 1985.

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Today over 80 per cent of the Soviet population live in self contained flats or houses of their own. Over the past 15 years, 160 million people have moved into new flats, which is equal to the populations of France, Great Britain and Spain taken together. And yet there is still a housing problem in the USSR. since the living accommodation of some of its urban residents is still below the standards accepted in the country.

DURING THE LIFESPAN OF ONE GENERATION

Overcrowded barrack-type houses and basements were all a working man could afford to live in in pre-revolutionary Russian towns. Although in the early years of Soviet power the country was faced with no less acute problems, the Soviet government decided to take up housing construction. It is hard to believe that over the first twenty years of its existence, the Soviet country, worn out by famine and ruin, managed to increase its urban housing stock 2.5 fold. However, nazi Germany’s aggression, which destroyed a third of the Soviet Union's national wealth and left 25 million people homeless, hurled the country’s housing level back to that of 1918. How much effort it took to heal these wounds...

In the first ten postwar years the housing stock increased 1.5 times over the prewar level.

Today, the country boasts the world's highest pace of housing construction, annually building as many flats as all West European countries taken together. Since housing construction outpaces population growth (over the years of Soviet government urban population showed a six-fold increase while the urban housing stock, thirteen-fold) the housing problem is expected to be mainly solved by 1990 when each family will have a self-contained flat.

GUARANTEED BY THE CONSTITUTION

The right to housing, just as other basic civil rights, is written down into the Constitution of the USSR which was adopted in 1977.

Had housing been a commercial item, citizens’ right to it would have remained on paper only. In the USSR, this right has real safeguards. Here better housing is given to those who need it most and not to those who have more money. That is precisely why the Constitution lays emphasis on the just distribution of flats under strict public control.

Since 1956, for almost 30 years now, the USSR has been building 2.2 million flats a year. But housing construction alone does not solve the housing problem. In some Western countries, for example, that have no less per capita housing space than the USSR, there are many homeless people who are unable to buy or rent housing. Such a situation is inconceivable in the USSR where the state ensures the implementation of the housing programme and where flats are distributed on just principles, as was mentioned above.

The right to housing is also constitutionally guaranteed by low rents and amenity charges which do not exceed three per cent of the income of the moderately well-off family. Rent has not changed since 1928.

It covers only a third of the state expenditure on housing maintenance, the remainder, nearly 6,000 million roubles a year, being subsidized by the state.

The right to housing is also ensured by constitutional provisions on its protection including legal and on the inviolability of the home.

The basic housing principles recorded in the Constitution have been developed further in the Fundamentals of Housing Legislation of the USSR and the Union Republics.

HOW DOES ONE RECEIVE A FLAT?

Flats are distributed in the USSR strictly in keeping with waiting lists of people in need of better housing. These lists are compiled by local bodies of state authority at the applicants' place of residence or by trade union committees at their place of work.

New flats are given in order of priority. The law lays down, however, that some categories of citizens have certain privileges enabling them to move into a new flat ahead of their turn. These include people who have done special services to the country, among them invalids of the Great Patriotic War, labour veterans, large families and families with twins and also some very sick people.

Approximately 75-79 out of every 100 flats in the USSR are built by the state and over 1 5–by the population with the help of easy-term state loans. Since this second form of house-building does not bring the state any profit either, the government's expenditure on solving the housing problem is growing, because over the past 15-20 years housing quality and comfort standards were raised on four occasions. The budgetary allocations for 1985 amount to 26,300 million roubles, as against 16,300 million in 1975.

CAN A PERSON BE EVICTED FROM HIS FLAT?

Having obtained a state-built flat, a citizen of the USSR acquires the right to use it for a certain rent by signing a contract, which is not a difficult procedure. The term of the contract is automatically prolonged. In fact, a flat is given on permanent lease. If a tenant dies the flat is retained by his children, grandchildren, etc.

Tenants have not only been given their flat for use in perpetuity, but they can let part of it (if, for example, a member of the family has left elsewhere) or even a whole flat when going abroad or on a long expedition.

Those wishing to live closer to their place of work or move to another town, to leave or join with their children can exchange their flat for another, a smaller or larger one, depending on the circumstances. Such exchanges are common. particularly in large cities.

A tenant can cancel the contract any time he wishes without any hindrance, whereas the state housing organizations (or house maintenance boards) can do this only in cases strictly limited by the law and only in the order prescribed by it. A tenant cannot be evicted even if he does not pay his rent in due time, this sum being recovered through the court.

Under the law, a person can be evicted if his home is to be pulled down or converted into a non-living accommodation. In this case he must be given another flat, as comfortable and large as his previous one. A private owner is, in addition, compensated for outbuildings that have to be pulled down.