Deprivatize it: the Chamber of Commerce and Industry found a solution to housing and communal services problems

Everything ingenious, as we know, is simple. But not everyone understands the ingenious simplicity. In any case, not all at once. Let’s take, for example, the seemingly unsolvable problems of housing and communal services, which this frosty winter turned into a real disaster in many regions of the country. The solution lay on the surface, but “eureka” – well, in the figurative sense, of course – only Andrei Shirokov, a member of the Council of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, could exclaim.

In general, Andrei Vyacheslavovich has a lot of regalia. At the Chamber of Commerce and Industry he also heads the Committee on Entrepreneurship in the Field of Housing and Communal Services. In addition: member of the Interdepartmental Working Group for the development of the draft Strategy for the Development of Housing and Communal Services of the Russian Federation for the period until 2035, member of the Council on Housing Construction and Promotion of the Development of the Housing and Communal Sector under the Federation Council… And so on, and so on, and so on . In general, he is not at all a random person for the housing and communal services sector and the “municipal” business. You could say it’s yours.

“Perhaps the privatization of housing was one of the biggest mistakes of the 90s,” Shirokov said in an interview with “Arguments and Facts.” “Because it gave birth to a huge class of “poor owners” who do not know how, and often do not want, to manage their home, not having enough funds for its maintenance and repairs. In a good way, at our level of economic development, 60% of the population would have to live in rental housing, and not in their own apartments.”

According to the wise and resourceful “technologist”, it’s not too late to fix everything. How? You will see each other, but even here, it turns out, everything is as simple as shelling pears. This is Eureka #2. No, it is not at all necessary to take away housing by force. Deprivatization, Shirokov believes, “can be carried out on a voluntary basis – through economic incentives.” The person from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry also did not reach into his pocket for incentives; he stated precisely and extremely frankly: “The average payment in Russia for the maintenance of common property is 25 rubles per square meter per month. And what does underfunding lead to? That’s right, to the degradation of this property. These are pennies !.. Payments should be at least 4 times higher, at the level of 100 rubles per square meter.”

Yes, such an incentive as a fourfold – at least fourfold – increase in payments will certainly encourage not only those who are completely penniless in Russia to choose the “correct” solution, but a significant proportion of those who are now considered “middle peasants.” Well, municipalities will be responsible for the deprivatized housing stock, in which former owners will inhabit as tenants of social housing.

The author of the idea, unfortunately, did not explain where municipalities will find money to maintain housing and save housing and communal services? According to him, “today the country’s public utilities require trillions of injections.” Although there are few options here. And since the state budget does not figure in any way in the proposed scheme, there are only two options left: either the missing funds will be collected from the same tenants who parted with their property – and now the mentioned four skins will be ripped off from them in the form of rent payments; or from those who did not want to part with – but they probably won’t get away with four skins. And most likely, they will fight both of them.

Well, that is, the scheme is wonderful: during its implementation, some will move from their own to municipal housing, while others will move to the street. It is somewhat surprising, however, that, while lamenting the mistakes of the past, Mr. Shirokov did not include the privatization of utility companies among them and did not propose, accordingly, to play back here. It would actually be more logical.

But this logic, of course, is philistine. For as the law of conservation of matter, first formulated by our great compatriot Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, says: “All changes that occur in nature are such states that as much as is taken from one body, so much will be added to another.” Well, it is obvious that in the reform scheme there cannot be only those who parted with “material”, who lost money, property, or both together. There must be someone who will shoulder the unbearable burden of the profit.

In short, it is impossible to find fault: no worse than the schemes for other reforms – neither in the housing and communal services sector, nor in other vital areas. Moreover, this reform, if Mr. Shirokov happened to lobby for it, would bring previous undertakings to a certain logical end. All the previous ones still left something behind the soul of the people, which gave rise to unnecessary conflicts and troubles. If there is no property, there are no problems associated with property.

Only one thought disturbs, does not give peace. Not even a thought, but some fragment of a thought, some phrase that popped up in my memory out of the blue. “The proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains…” Where does this come from? We should remember. Maybe Mr. Shirokov can help?