Tech & Rights

Lack of Housing Threatens Maturing Children in Czech Institutions

Ninety-three percent of people living in Czech children's homes are most worried about finding housing when they leave as adults. Employment is secondary.

by The League of Human Rights
1.5 million people in the Czech Republic live in unsatisfactory housing conditions. 250,000 of them are children.

Children often end up in institutional care as a result of their parents becoming homeless. Of the 1.5 million people living in substandard housing in the Czech Republic, roughly a quarter million are children.

Half of the total number of residents in institutional care were placed there as children when their parents became homeless. When they leave the institute as adults, they often end up homeless themselves.

They attempt to stay with friends� or in dormitories. Even if they do get a job, cities often don't offer social or starter homes, and many end up homeless and on the street.

A spiral of homelessness

"Up to half of children growing up in institutional care are there due to lack of housing. According to the market research group IPSOS, 93 percent of those living in children's homes are most worried about finding housing upon leaving. Employment is secondary. Those kids simply have nowhere to go," says Michal Dorda of the Czech Government Council for the Rights of the Child.

"It's a spiral of sorts," Dorda said. "I grew up in an orphanage, myself. My parents as well. Even other relatives and their children also ended up in the childcare. When children grow up in this way, they have no bindings. They have no certainty and are unable to secure anything or pass anything on to their offspring, as evidenced by the nurseries' statistics."

Affordable social housing

The problem, according to experts, would be solved by social housing. Affordable flats would be made available by local communities for maturing children who leave children's homes, the elderly, and mothers with children and people who live on the street.

The Czech government has already prepared a law on social housing, which opens for debate this month. If all goes well, if could come into force by the mid-2017.

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