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~ near pks & shppg. $12.00 mo.

_By George Morris

66 L.
t us bear in mind that all flats built
Under state investments are made available
o the population for permanent use free of
ge.” ‘
_The above is not a mistake and there is no
ick language involved. It is from a pam-
Phlet titled ‘‘A good home for every working
Person,” by Yuri Rodin, Deputy Chairman of
the State Committee for Civil Construction
and Agriculture, operating under the State
Building Committee on the USSR Council of
Ministers — the top Soviet authority on con-
Struction of homes.

_ There has never been such mass give-
aWay in all history. As A.N. Kosygin, chair-
Man of the Council of Ministers reported to
the 25th Congress of the Communist Party,
during the 1971-75 five-year plan 11 million
apartments or individual houses built or re-
Conditioned by the government were given to

amilies totaling 56 million persons. In the
two 5 year plans covering 1960-1970 the gov-
€rnment similarly gave newly built or re-
Conditioned homes for occupation by 110
Million persons.

If the above is hard to believe, then note
the following by Gennady Makarov, chief of
he Housing Department section of the All
Union Central Council of Trade Unions, in an
Interview he granted me at the headquarters
ve 107-million member union body. He
1d:

“The local union at the enterprise has

control of the assignment of houses from the
planning of construction to the handing of the

_ key to the occupant.”’

I told him it is hard for Americans to be-
lieve the USSR’s housing policy. In New
York, people consider it a lucky break to find
a two-bedroom apartment for $200 a month
rent, and an impossibility to obtain perma-
nent use of an apartment without a penny
down-payment on it, for a monthly rent (in-
cluding utilities), of only four to five percent
of a family’s income (the percentage Soviets
pay). We pay about that much just for gas
and light. And the unions of the US. do not
have the slightest say on housing: their
members are hired by private contractors to
build for only private owners. :

Gennady and I spent several hours dis-
cussing the Soviet housing policy which is so
different than America’s or of any other

non-socialist land. Local unions in the USSR, :
through their factory committees (ZAV-

COM) have the deciding control on housing.

ZAVCOM’s influence begins when a hous-
ing project for its members is still in the
planning stage. The. union has a say on the
location of the houses although the plant ad-
ministration pays for all construction. Are
the plans satisfactory in terms of providing
decent homes and such other matters? Is
there good transportation, shopping sites,
etc.? The union’s give their influential opin-
ion. The cost is the union’s interest, too, be-
cause there is always the consideration of
getting a maximum number of apartments
from the money available. To solve this a
decision must be made as to whether the fac-
tory should seek a contract with a builidng
enterprise or give the funds to the local
Soviet (government) letting it arrange for
the construction. But in either case, said
Makarov, ‘‘the ZAVCOM representative

must be at the signing of the contract or the
contract is not valid.”

When construction is finished, distribu-
tion of the apartments must strictly adhere
to the union’s list of those who are in need of
housing improvement or larger quarters due
to family increase. Within that framework,
the most serious cases of urgency top the list
and among them there is a preference list.
Makarov said preference is given to invalids,
physically handicapped; distinguished
workers honored as “Heroes of the USSR;”’
those with highest seniority at the enter-
prise; those who make the best showing in

socialist emulation. In fact there is a legal —

requirement that 20 percent of the housing
must be given to the “best workers.”’ But the
basic guide for all requests is to give new
apartments to those in most urgent need of
improved homes.

The key body from which the recommen-
dation for housing distribution is the housing
sub-committee of ZAVCOM. That committee
surveys the housing conditions of applicants,
the number of children in their family, pre-
sent living conditions and other such details.
Recommendations are then made to a joint
union-management committee who post
proposals on a bulletin board for all the
workers of the plant to see. All in the plant
have the right to dispute any of the selections
either by personally appearing before ZAV-
COM or by sending a letter. The final deci-
sion after review of complaints comes before
a general membership meeting of the local
union.

“There are disputes, of course. It is a per-
sonal matter with many,” Makarov went on.
‘But no higher authority can interfere with
the local decision. The local trade union has
control.”

. Disputes over housing are at times re-

flected in letters to Pravda, Izvestia, Trud
and other press in the Soviet Union. By the
strictly applied rule of the Communist Par-
ty’s Central Committee, all such letters (and
they pour in by the hundreds of thousands)
whether published or not, must, where action
is needed, be referred to the responsible
ministry or government body. An answer is
mandatory. Occasionally, a manager is
caught violating procedure to favor a rela-
tive with an apartment. The action on such
cases is reported to the press. One such case,
reported in Pravda on March 9, involved a
man, who through deceit, was able to chan-
nel apartments for his relatives. He was ex-
pelled from the,Communist Party. He was
also found to have purchased a home but
rented it to others. He was tried for profiting
from the labor of others, (illegal under Soviet
law), and ‘‘his’” house was added to those to
be distributed to deserving workers. The
plant’s management was sharply re-
primanded for letting the trickery get by.
The race to provide housing is continuing
its rapid pace. No country in the world comes
anywhere near the USSR’s rate of housing
construction. Whether in Moscow, Tash-
kent,...Leningrad, Yerevan, Kiev or any city
across the vast land, you see newly-built de-
velopments of many scores of 12, 14 and 16-

story apartment buildings and companion ~

shopping centers, schools, theatres, clinics,
sport fieldS, child-care play areas and other

facilities. Tens of thousands of cranes:are in

continual operation. The seven million
members of the Construction and Building
Materials Industry Workers work year-
around without loss of a day.

The war losses threw the USSR back con-
siderably. By the time the invading fascists
were driven out of the country more than 25
million Soviet persons were without a roof
over their heads. But that loss was more than
replaced by the mid-fifties. The task today,
observed Makarov, is to supply better hous-
ing. As late as 15 years ago, living space per
person (not counting kitchen or bath), aver-
aged three square meters. Today the aver-
age is past the hygienic norm of seven square
meters. In Moscow, said Makarov, 90% of
the eight million people are in new.or reno-
vated homes. Today, he observed, the qual-
ity, style and comforts of the newer homes
are a great improvement over those built
earlier by the Soviet Union. .

“Inherited conditions are a big problem,”’
he went on, observing that for a time the
wrecking of old and badly-built houses was
very high, although the wrecking rate is
dropping steadily.

I asked Makarov about evictions. He said
it is virtually impossible to evict a family,
even when occupants behave badly. There
are so many grounds that bar eviction that it
hardly pays to make the effort in such situa-
tions.

“Anyway, if you evict a worker for
drunkenness and disturbance, he’ll do the
same elsewhere,” Makarov observed. ‘‘So a
person should really be brought to court in
such_cases for misbehavior. It is impossible
to evict a family with children, or an invalid
or a handicapped person. I can’t remember a
single eviction.” : 2

Does a person have to change residence if
he changes jobs? No, according to Makarov,
not unless the distance to a worker’s new job
is too great and he can get a place closer.
Does a retired worker whose children have
grown and left still occupy the apartment
that has become more spacious for him than
is generally alloted? He can unless he
chooses to change for a smaller quarter.
Makarov said there is no compulsion but
many retirees prefer smaller apartments.

Rules on apartment allotment must be

. Strict, observed Makarov, to prevent the ef-

fort of some to take a job in a plant merely to

be in line for a better apartment. There is a
great deal at stake — a home given away. An-

occupant of a home is not its real owner. The
government owns it. But the government is a
different kind of a “‘landlord.’’ The rent coy-
ers only about a third of the cost to the gov-
ernment. And the government covers about
half the cost of maintenance. You can’t sell
the apartment given you. You can’t give it to
anyone else if you change residence. But you

can live in it as long as you like — at acost of -

five to six percent of income, hardly more
than a day’s pay.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 22, 1976—Page 5