STA, 23 August 2022 - The Housing Fund, which has received EUR 108.25 million in grants from the Environment Ministry and a loan from the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), plans to build 1,244 public rental apartments across the country by 2026, the fund's head, Črtomir Remec, told the press on Tuesday.
Given the current stokck of 7,000 apartments and about 2,500 apartments under construction and planned, the fund expects to have 10,000 apartments available for rent in 2025, Remec said about the closing of the 2015-2024 national housing programme.
Another boost will be the EUR 38.25 million in grants that the fund won in a public tender published by the Ministry for Environment and Spatial Planning as part of the recovery and resilience plan.
The money will be spent on the construction of 714 public rental units at 11 locations in five statistical regions by the end of 2024, including 136 apartments (or 20%) intended for elderly people who need assistance.
All the projects include 10% of units for people with disabilities.
"This means that in total we have 30% of apartments for the disabled and the elderly, which is what has been our goal all along - to provide for all those with special needs, both young and old, regardless of the current demographic trends," Remec said.
He added, thought, that not all contracts for the projects had been signed yet.
Remec noted that a week ago a contract had been signed with the CEB on a EUR 70 million loan, which "we had to work hard for".
These funds will be used to build 912 public apartments by 2026 that will be available for rent in seven statistical regions, including 58 apartments for elderly people who need assistance and 10% of apartments for people with disabilities.
In certain projects, both the money from the recovery and resilience plan and the CEB funds will be used.
"If we combine the money from the recovery fund and the development bank, we have EUR 108.25 million in total and 1,244 public apartments for rent at 18 locations in nine statistical regions, of which 164 will be apartments for elderly who need assistance," he said.
Remec expects most of the apartments to be built by 2025.
Meanwhile, the Housing Fund will also finance municipal projects with a total of 421 new housing units at six locations (Celje, Ljubljana, Koper, Zreče, Slovenske Konjice, Novo Mesto).
Touching on the new national housing programme for 2025-2035, Remec said in the future municipalities and city funds should take on more tasks, "as the national fund cannot solve all the housing problems in the country".
