Prime Minister Edi Rama participated today in the event for the presentation of the National Housing Program for Albania “Rilinda 2.0”. During his speech, the Prime Minister announced the 6 points of this program, which will help citizens with their housing.
According to Rama, 4,000 young couples will be provided with keys to their apartments, while 2,000 zero-interest loans will be provided for apartments worth up to 60,000 euros. Another 2,000 loans will be offered at 3% interest for apartments worth over 60,000 euros.
The new program also foresees the expansion of the social rental housing scheme, through the construction of new housing, their purchase on the market, the adaptation of state or confiscated buildings, as well as the use of public-private partnerships.
Another component is support for lower-cost housing, improvement of existing housing for vulnerable families, and infrastructure interventions in informal areas.
As part of the program, new housing areas will also be created, designed for all segments of society, while another point is related to the construction of temporary housing for families affected by natural disasters.
Part of “Rilinda 2.0” are also apartments adapted for people with disabilities, with the aim of creating more suitable and accessible living conditions.
Rama described the program as part of a broader structural reform in the field of housing, while announcing that the legal draft for this reform is expected to soon go through public consultation and then to the Parliament.
“So Rilindja 2.0 is a vision raised to another level in a number of aspects and housing has its own essential aspect. There are six new programs that we will address all together and when I say new I do not mean invention, as they are well-known terms, but they are packaged together in a comprehensive reform, as I said,” Rama said, among other things.
Excerpts from the Prime Minister’s speech:
First of all, it is not a new national program that is purely and solely financial. But it is a new national program as the embodiment of a very deep structural reform that has already taken the form of a legal draft, will soon go to public consultation and then to parliament to change the approach to this very important and increasingly acute topic due to the difficulties that young families and young people in general encounter on the path to acquiring a home. Let me be very clear that this is not a hot topic and simply unique to Albania.
This is not a purely local problem, this is a major European problem and not only is it a major European problem and the more developed the countries of Europe are, the bigger the problem. This is one of those results of the development of these years that we must face in a different form. Because the development of the last decade has already completely changed the optics of people regarding the country and their place in this country. So Rilindja 2.0 is a vision raised to another level in a number of aspects and housing has its own essential aspect. There are six new programs that we will address all together and when I say new I do not mean invention, as they are well-known terms, but they are packaged together in a comprehensive reform, as I said.
The first program is the social rental housing program, it is a well-known scheme used over the years, but which we and in fact the provision of rental housing will be a program that will become more complex and will simply and only wait for it to be built and then have the chance to get a flat in a long queue where it is not known how the selection ends. Social rental housing will provide for new construction, direct purchase from the market, adaptation of state buildings or confiscated buildings and here I want to repeat that we have confiscated quite a few buildings and we will confiscate any building that violates the rules for building permits and of course the bonus on rent, but also the public-private partnership. We will use all instruments to guarantee a much wider offer from the state for those who need and will be able to rent social housing.
Then there is the lowest-cost housing, which is related to the state subsidy of the loan, taking into account that the loaned housing falls into the category of low-cost housing and for this there is a well-defined categorization.
Then we come to the improvement of existing housing for vulnerable groups, as well as a project, a special infrastructure program in informal areas and to adapt certain housing as social housing. The program has a new development with the development of housing areas and here we are not talking only about social housing in the sense of only for those in need, but we are talking about all strata of society, we do not want to create a housing block only for poor people, but for all strata, while the poorest will have support to live there, the wealthiest will buy there.
We will aim for the housing areas to be quality areas in every aspect. And for this, structural reform will also serve. Very soon we will start in Tirana with this new program and we are considering a number of other areas in other municipalities, where of course all mayors are invited to make their proposals.
The other program is that of temporary housing, we will have to build temporary housing in the sense of having a ready-made infrastructure available to people affected by natural disasters.
And the sixth program is what we can call special housing, which are housing adapted for families with people with disabilities or for individuals with disabilities.