Workshop on housing care for representatives of county state administration offices and the competent administrative body of the City of Zagreb

On February 4th 2015, organized by the State Office for Reconstruction and Housing Care (SORHC) in the premises of the Congress Centre Forum Zagreb, starting at 10am, a workshop was held in order to educate and help the representatives of state administration offices in the counties and the competent administrative body of the City of Zagreb on the procedure of deciding on requests for housing care.

The following presentations were made: presentation of the implementation of the housing care plan in 2014; application in practice of the Law on Areas of Special State Concern (LASSC) (“Official Gazette”, no. 86/06, 57/11, 51A / 13, 148 / 13, 76 / 14 and 147/14); review of the last modification of the said Law and informing the participants of the workshop on the preparation of a new Law on Housing Care in accordance with the Law on Regional Development (“Official Gazette”, no. 147/14) in 2015.

State Office for Reconstruction and Housing Care at the workshop has presented the execution of plans for housing for 2014 and noted the following conclusion:

–  High level of execution of the annual plans for the users of organized accommodation and the other beneficiaries in accordance with the Priority List;

– Satisfactory degree of execution of the annual plan for former tenancy rights holders, and these procedures should be intensified;

– Revising the status of refugees and displaced persons is not completed in accordance with the Decision and it should be completed as soon as possible; cases of reconstruction should be solved as priority, because the deadline for applications expired yet in 2004 and these beneficiaries, if they do not exercise their rights according to the Law on Reconstruction, may become beneficiaries by LASSC.

According to the annual plan for 2015, which the Government of the Republic of Croatia adopted by the Conclusion from  December 17^th 2014, SORHC  in the second quarter of 2015 plans to bring a LAW ON HOUSING CARE.

In the second part of the workshop, the representatives of the state administration offices were presented the information support for recording of first-instance decisions of state administration offices and the administrative body of the City of Zagreb, as well as the format of standard decisions for reconstruction and housing.

At the end of the workshop, a productive discussion was developed and there were questions related to the procedure of resolving housing care, forming of the Commission for the Assessment of Residential Building within the state administration offices and the lack of staff in the state administration offices, considering the quantity of the cases.

In addition to the organizer of the workshop, i.e. State Office for Reconstruction and Housing Care, representatives of state administration offices in the counties and the competent administrative body of the City of Zagreb, the workshop was also attended by the following stakeholders: representatives of the Ministry of Veterans, the Ombudsman, UNHCR, Serbian National Council and representatives of non-governmental organizations that provide legal assistance to applicants for housing care, which are the following: Hocu kuci – Knin, Information legal center Slavonski Brod, Center for peace, nonviolence and human rights Osijek, Center for peace, legal advice and psychosocial assistance – Vukovar and the Civil Rights Project Sisak.