Alexander Bastrykin at a personal reception received a group of orphans from Omsk Region on housing issues

The Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia held a video-conference personal reception of citizens attended by the First Deputy and Deputy Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia and heads of the Central Office units.

Today the reception of the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia was applied to by a group of persons from among orphan children of Omsk Region. The questions of the applicants concerned provision of housing provided for by law. Almost all young people who have applied are in possession of court decisions on the immediate provision of housing to them (dated, among other things, as early as 2017), but they have not yet been executed. The investigative bodies of the Investigative Committee of Russia had launched probes into negligence and failure to comply with a court decision that were merged into one probe. The Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia reminded that the situation with housing for orphans across the country remains tense. For example, in Omsk Region only on May 1, 2021 over 6,000 young people were in the queue for housing. From 2016-2020 935 million rubles were allocated from the federal budget only to solve the problem in the Omsk region, however, only 1,074 apartments were bought. Apart from that the region lacks programs for providing orphans with a housing certificate for the purchase of housing, although in a number of constituent entities of the Russian Federation this practice has already shown good results. However, in some regions a conflict has arisen, since a housing certificate is issued for an amount less than the cost of an apartment.

Alexander Bastrykin reminded that the implementation of the housing rights of orphans is one of the issues of state policy in the field of child protection, which is given special attention both in terms of implementation of the National Strategy for Action in the Interests of Children and in the framework of the Decade of Childhood (2018–2027), announced by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation. He also stressed that the state funding for resolving of this issue has been increased by 10%. However, the unacceptable situation with a significant number of court decisions on claims of orphans in connection with the lack of housing is worrisome. And this is facilitated by a number of reasons: there are no programs that ensure the attraction of developers, sellers of secondary housing, and, as a result, the problem of non-utilization of the allocated money has become acute. In addition, there is still the problem of providing substandard housing as well as of various fraudulent activities in this area.

The head of the Investigative Committee of Russia requested a report on investigation of the said probe and asked a number of key questions about reasons of ignoring the court decisions and non-providing of housing to applicants from Omsk Region, According to officers of the Omsk Regional Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia, the main problem is low cost of a square metre and, in this regard, the unwillingness of developers to participate in competitive procedures; the region at its discretion supposedly cannot increase the cost. But the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia in his turn explained that the legislative base had been carefully studied during investigation of similar probes. Thus, providing housing to orphans is a responsibility of the region, the cost standards are used only for the purpose of calculating the size of the subsidy from the federal budget, and not from the regional one. Limitation of the cost of residential premises purchased by the constituent entities of the Russian Federation is not provided for by Russian legislation.

Answering the questions of the applicants, Alexander Bastrykin promised to supervise the situation and the probe upon his instruction was referred to the Central Office of the Committee for further investigation.

In that Alexander Bastrykin once again reminded about the order of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation to eliminate the queue for housing for orphans within 6 years. The execution of this order is entitled to the leadership of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, and the employees of the investigative departments in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation should be more actively involved in resolving the situation: promptly initiate probes and bring the perpetrators to justice, as well as to hold personal receptions of orphans and explain their rights to them.

In conclusion of the reception Alexander Bastrykin gave a number of specific instructions on the said probe and promised the applicants to listen to them again if needed.