Social housing in the Czech Republic in a comparative context

The first part of this article analyses the situation of the Czech housing market paying attention to the sector of municipality rental housing. Municipality housing could play a role of housing for middle and lower income households, known as social housing in countries of the European Union. Emphasis is placed on the critical evaluation of the current state, as the "social effectiveness" of this kind of housing is very low in the Czech environment. The differences between market rents in private rental sector and controlled rents in municipal housing are shown, and the distribution of profits from rent regulation among lower and higher income households is described. The second part of the article is formed by a comparative description of different social housing systems in the EU countries, showing the variety of technical and legislative means used to assure fulfilment of given social and economic goals.