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Description
The project deals with the topic of housing crisis. Housing, as a basic human right, is becoming increasingly unaffordable and is treated as an investment. This goes hand in hand with other social problems. The project''s activities are based around movie screenings which touch on the diverse causes of the housing crisis, its consequences, while also offering examples of successful projects for the right to housing. The evenings will be accompanied by an introduction by a guest speaker and a subsequent debate in order to identify the global causes of housing unaffordability and open up a discussion on how to get out of it. Opening the discussion and sharing knowledge is the first step to give people power. The project aims mainly at people living in rent whose basic human needs are threatened and offers them to get active in the local Tenants Initiative in order to strenghten the tenant''s rights and fight for the right to city and affordable housing.
Summary of project results
The project has definitely had a positive impact in the long term – a new and a broader group of people became aware of the activities of Re-set and Tenants’ Initiative (INN). Some of the contacts we gained during the screenings were transformed into actively involved members of the Tenants’ Initiative, which was the biggest success. In addition, the involvement in INN is the first experience with civic engagement for some of the members. This fulfilled our main aim and goal – to bring tenants together, to point out the systemic causes of the problem and to find solutions together. To this, we wrote a short interview template (Output 3.2, Interview Template), which the "activist" use if they decide to start solving a problem in their house collectively with their neighbors. Similar internal manuals are created by INN on a continuous basis and serve primarily the members.
We have been able to connect with a number of other actors, either through film screenings directly (with director Hlaváček, Rous, or social worker Jan MIlota and community organizer Eva Lehotska), or through the work on the publication Insecure housing and energy poverty (Nejisté bydlení a energetická chudoba, Output 3.3 and 3.4), which we consulted with experts from the Institute of Sociology of the CAS, the Association for International Affairs and the Platform for Social Housing. Thanks to the publication, we managed to attract the attention of both the media and the Ministry of Regional Development, which is now focusing on changes in tenancy relations. Other forms of cooperation are on the way.
The change is achieved gradually – the Tenants'' Initiative is only at the beginning and is now building its membership base. We are not going to solve housing problems overnight and they will certainly continue to occur. However, we have definitely managed to make our activities more visible, both locally (in Brno) and nationally (thanks to the publication Insecure housing and energy poverty). Many individual people who are dealing with specific housing problems reach out to us, but we are also contacted by the media, which are finally beginning to focus on problems in rental housing from the perspective of tenants.