By Dana Weiler-Polak | May.12, 2010
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/business/public-housing-called-life-threatening-1.289827
The conditions in public housing are so bad they constitute a "violation of human dignity," wrote State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss in his annual report released yesterday. The homes are in such bad repair they could endanger human life, states the report.
The comptroller examined 35 public housing apartments and found that in 30, 86% of the total, there were construction and maintenance problems. Most had more than one fault. Most of the problems were the result of poor maintenance on the part of the residents, the public housing companies and the construction firms.
Ten of the apartments checked had problems that could endanger residents' lives, including serious water damage and damp, unsafe stairs and banisters. Some of the homes had problems serious enough to endanger life in the future if not handled, Lindenstrauss wrote.
In addition, the comptroller's office inspected nine buildings and found serious faults with four. Only one building examined was considered to be in reasonable shape.
The Housing and Construction Ministry is responsible for supervising the public housing companies, which are supposed to conduct maintenance checks. But it seems that most reports failed to reflect the actual state of the apartments – and their veracity is suspect.
The comptroller inspected apartments managed by the Amidar, Halamish, Heled and Amigur companies. The report covers the way the companies dealt with maintenance problems in 2008, and how quickly they dealt with the problems.
Some of the companies did not deal with some of the problems at all, and others took longer to deal with them than the law allows.
Some of the companies also did not document the dates of the work as required.
The Housing Ministry said the maintenance requirements are dictated by law. "We receive complaints from residents on the matter and all are checked in depth … In 2010 the ministry plans on examining the residents' files to follow upon the handling of complaints on problems in the apartments," said the ministry.
Amidar said the residents were responsible for most of the delays in maintaining the apartments, such as paying rent late or difficulties in scheduling repairs. In another case, the company said the problem was not significant and therefore had to wait for funds to become available.
מאבק הדיור הציבורי 