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Final workshop, 2 December 2022, Lviv.

From left to right:

Volodymyr Bryhilevych, Head of the Board of the NGO «Center of Local Government Studies» (CLGS), Lviv, Ukraine

Lilia Grychulevych, Head of the Housing Initiative for Eastern Europe (IWO), Berlin, Germany

Liubov Karpenko, Head of the Board of the Public Union Public Union "Zaporizhzhya Resource Center "KRUG", Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine

Serhiy Soltys, Head of HOA Support Department, Lviv City Council, Ukraine

All pictures: ©IWO e. V.

On 2 and 3 December, the final event "Housing managers today in Ukraine - challenges of wartime, perspectives of the profession, lobby work" took place in Lviv and Novoyavorivsk, Lviv region. The Federal Foreign Office project "VITAL EAST- Vocational Training for housing managers and caretakers in the regions of Ukraine - Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv" thus came to an end.

"This project has already brought positive results. However, we hope to transfer the experience of the project to train more housing managers and to introduce a caretaker training programme to improve the level of housing services provided to Ukrainians. There are over 500,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Kharkiv Oblast who are not adequately provided with housing, and the housing stock, including apartment buildings, is badly damaged. Therefore, a significant need for housing managers and caretakers is expected after the war during reconstruction (new housing construction and rebuilding). The Kharkiv region also needs to build social housing for both displaced persons and flat owners who have lost their houses and are waiting for compensation from the state or for reconstruction of their houses. Therefore, a logical continuation of this project would be to further develop the ideas of social rental housing. At the same time, it is important to realise that Ukraine must first and foremost regulate legislation regarding the construction and use of rental housing at the national level.”

(Natalia Gorbonenko, Head of the Department of Economic Analysis and Community Development, Department of Housing, Communal Services and Fuel and Energy Complexes of Kharkiv Region, at the final workshop of the project in Lviv on 2 December.)

The participants of the event - representatives of housing management companies and city administrations from Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya and Lviv - actively discussed the work of housing managers and housing associations during the war, the role of housing managers and city authorities in organising measures to rebuild destroyed housing, cooperation with renters and problems with the relocation of IDPs. There were discussions on the social and rental housing market in Ukraine and on ways to provide affordable housing for vulnerable groups and IDPs, too.

The results of the VITAL EAST project 04'2021 - 12'2022 were presented at the workshop:

a training programme for housing managers was developed - 72 hours of lessons
based on this programme, 50 specialists and interested people from Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhya (including internally displaced persons) were trained in Ukraine in 2021
the project participants additionally took part in the international webinars organised in the project - 24 hours of lessons
the 10 best students (according to the test results) and 5 project partners (representatives of partner organisations and city administrations - Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya, Novojivirivs'k, Lvivska oblast) participated in the Study Tour to Germany - 32 hours of lessons
a "Brochure for caretakers" (ru) was developed and published online.

The partners and participants of the Final Workshop assessed the results of the project very positively and underlined that in today's conditions in Ukraine the issues of quality housing management, rapid rehabilitation and creation of new housing are of great importance and have great perspective for the post-war reconstruction period.

On 3 December, the participants visited the city of Novoyavorivsk, Lviv region, to see the successful examples of energy modernisation of residential buildings and the well-organised cooperation between flat owners and city authorities. The group from Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhya was welcomed in the city by Volodymyr Macelyukh, Mayor of Novoyavorivsk, and Halyna Dzhulay, First Deputy Mayor.

The partners and participants of the project emphasised that especially today, at such a difficult time for Ukraine, communication between representatives of Ukrainian society from the east of the country with colleagues and partners from the west of Ukraine unites Ukrainians even more on the common path towards the development of an independent, self-sufficient country with European values, norms and standards of living.

Participants and partners expressed their views on joint actions in further cooperation with Germany - "We need projects:

- Training for housing managers, including on operational management in war situations and improved communication with landlords and tenants.
- Development of a quality social housing market to ensure affordable housing for vulnerable groups and IDPs."

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