A housing apartment in Givatayim where time stood still in the 1960s/courtesy of those photographed, Niki Truk
Yesterday (Tuesday) a discussion was held in the Interior Committee of the Knesset regarding the request of the Minister of Construction and Housing, Yitzhak Goldknopf, to ease eligibility for continuing tenants in public housing for bereaved families and the families of the abducted.
This is an amendment to the public housing law that will allow family members of people who were injured on October 7, murdered and kidnapped, who were eligible for public housing and no longer live in an apartment, to receive an automatic right to live in it.
The amendment, initiated by the Minister of Housing, is intended to make it easier for families who are in recognition procedures and there is a danger that they will be evicted from their homes.
As you can probably imagine, these are individual families.
The chairman of the committee and the legal counsel also expressed bewilderment at the need to introduce such a limited law, which in the best case would bring aid to three families, and in the worst case would create offensive discrimination even between victims of hostilities who were harmed at the beginning of the war and those who were harmed later in the war, including between the victims of hostilities and the weak people in Israeli society, on The continuing tenant law has not been valid since 2009. If it is not enough that the authors of the law imply that the rights to a continuing tenant must be bought with blood, then the law itself also makes a distinction between the blood of the victims in a cynical and offensive way.
The demand from the government: to return the situation to pre-2009
The Ministry of Housing understands very well, for a long time, that there is a problem of tenants continuing to live in public housing, and therefore it was necessary to amend the legislation passed in 2009 through the Arrangements Law, which basically emptied the law of its content.
Through a "minor" amendment, which says that eligibility for a continuing tenant will be conditional on that tenant's eligibility for public housing, the Ministry of Finance managed to exclude tens of thousands of poor families who were supposed to receive the eligibility for a continuing tenant from the circle of eligibility, leaving them without a home.
Worse than that, the amendment made overnight to the Settlements Law in an undemocratic manner and without discussion, led to the fact that even people who have lived in their childhood home for decades became "invaders" in their homes and legal proceedings were opened against them.
The Ministry of Housing and the Ministry of Finance evicted thousands of families from their homes and deprived them of their roofs following an amendment that was never debated and the Knesset members who voted in favor of the Arrangements Law did not even know that they were signing tens of thousands of evictions of the elderly, single mothers, and the disabled to the street.
Yitzhak Goldknopf, car park burned by Hamas terrorists, November 9, 2023/Reuven Castro
At yesterday's hearing, the Ministry of Housing and the Ministry of Justice justified the law they brought to the committee by saying that there are not enough resources, and therefore bring such a limited law so as not to harm the other waiting parties.
The head of the Ministry of Justice representative said at the hearing that there are not enough apartments and the expansion of the law will lead to a violation of the rights of those waiting for public housing.
A representative of the Ministry of Housing who was present at the hearing reinforced her words and the justification for bringing in a limited law, and claimed that the law stems from the need to help the victims while ignoring the discrimination between blood and blood as stated by the members of the Knesset who were present at the hearing, including the director of the committee, Knesset member Yaakov Asher, who said that he did not know how to explain why Such a casualty in the war will accept and others will not.
It's like the Ministry of Health telling chronic patients that there are medicines only for war casualties
"The argument of the lack of apartments comes up in almost every discussion held by the Ministry of Housing on public housing and thus the Ministry of Housing justifies any harm and denial of the rights of the tenants," said Danny Gigi, CEO of the Public Housing Forum. "The arguments of the Ministry of Housing and the Ministry of Justice are simply an insult to the intelligentsia, does it arise Do you think the Ministry of Health will tell chronic patients that there are medicines only for war casualties?
Is it possible for the Ministry of Education to decide that only victims of hostilities will receive free education and the rest will not?
And it is clear that the Ministry of Housing and the Ministry of Finance are misleading the public, because the lack of public housing is primarily due to a deliberate policy of eliminating public housing, which is reflected in the fact that they have not been buying apartments or building apartments for decades," added Gigi.
Indeed, it can be seen that there is a problem large in increasing the inventory and the ministries of housing and finance have been following a policy of dragging their feet for many years when it comes to increasing the inventory. In the last two decades, the ministry of finance and the ministry of housing have indeed purchased very few apartments, and have completely given up on planning and building new public housing. The ministry of finance has come out against the huge program for housing rehabilitation Minister Yoav Galant's public policy "Living with dignity" which stated that the inventory needs to be increased by 7200 public apartments every year and pointed to both financial and planning resources to carry out the task.
"Is it conceivable that the Ministry of Health will tell chronic patients that there are medicines only for war casualties?"/ShutterStock
The Treasury also blocked any new construction of public housing through a price plan for residents, even though an unequivocal decision was made by the leadership of Israel Lands to allocate 7% public housing from each new construction.
And if that's not enough, just last week it was revealed in the Aliyah and Absorption Committee that the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Housing, which three years ago promised a budget for the purchase of 1,700 apartments, purchased only 100 apartments from these funds, when at the end of the year all these funds may return to the Ministry of Finance without the possibility of using them again.
It is important to note that according to all international data Israel lacks tens of thousands of public apartments when in Israel less than 2% of the apartments are public apartments and in Europe the average is 12%.
"It is unwise, illogical, and immoral to blame the Tenant Continuing Law for the shortage, or the Public Housing Law, and it is better that instead of punishing the tenants and the homeless by tightening the eligibility criteria and denying their rights, they present a real plan to the Ministry of Housing and the Ministry of Finance for the rehabilitation of public housing," concludes Gigi .
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