The quality of municipal rental housing has improved and queues have fallen / day.

According to the office, the Ombudsman periodically evaluated the availability and quality of the free dwellings to be rented to the municipalities, which is offered to the residents as a municipal assistance, and concluded that the quality of such housing has significantly improved compared to the situation ten years ago.

The office points out that municipalities have invested both their own funds for the improvement of the housing stock and also attracted funding from the European Union (EU) funds. EU support for the establishment or renovation of new municipal housing is an essential resource for municipalities that lack residential premises, says the Ombudsman’s Office.

The study has identified that the number of people or families in the « apartments » of municipalities, who are expecting municipal assistance in housing, has decreased significantly, ie if they were more than 10,000 people in 2014, 4779 people on March 1 this year.

The Ombudsman also calls on municipalities to publish a list of dwellings available to the rent by June 1 this year so that it is freely accessible to residents registered for home assistance or to whom the home assistance is urgently provided.

The office points out that, in 2014, the Ombudsman conducted the original assessment of housing quality of municipalities and gave a comparative insight into the technical and visual position of the Latvian Local Government Housing Fund. In 2018, the Ombudsman conducted a repeated study of the situation.

As reported, the parliament evaluates amendments to the Law « On Housing Issues », which provides that the state will be able to participate in the autonomous function of municipalities and provide assistance to the provision of rental apartments accessible to the public by participating in public and private partnership projects.