Steven N.
“The government is campaigning with a promise of a 133,000 Ft. (US $420) minimum monthly wage, while rent in the capital is 160,000 Ft. ($506),” said Jobbik Vice-President Dániel Z. Kárpát on behalf of the United for Hungary opposition coalition at a press conference on Monday. Kárpát said that new rental construction can be a meaningful solution to the country’s housing crisis.
Fidesz wants to import a Chinese university with taxpayers’ money that charges three million forints for tuition. We want long-term housing for 30,000 young Hungarians.
-stated the Jobbik leader, who connected the construction of new rental housing to the opposition’s referendum initiative on Fudan University. The government’s plans to build a campus of the Chinese university in Budapest would replace the Student City project and take away planned dormitory space for Hungarian college students.
Socialist MP Dezső Hiszékeny added that not only the price of new apartments, but even rent is unaffordable for those living on wages and salaries. The municipality in his District XIII constituency is providing its own funding for building rental housing, he said, with a 35-apartment condominium handed over to tenants just last week.
LMP’s Bernadett Bakos also leveled criticism at the government’s housing subsidy policies. The CSOK subsidy for young families purchasing homes, she said, is “for the privilege of a few, while driving up property prices.”
But as Jobbik’s Kárpát also stated, Bakos noted that the United for Hungary coalition did not want to abolish the existing benefits, just make them fairer by making them need-based.
[444][Photo: Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom / Facebook]
