Social housing in the Czech Republic: the change of a trend?

The goal of this paper is (1) to describe the history and the most recent development of the social housing system in the Czech Republic and (2) to critically assess earlier and recent attempts to solve the lack of a social housing strategy in this country. In general, the paper is meant to contribute to the literature on the housing policy formulation in countries in transition, from planning to market economy, and thus provide an insight into the main factors that may explain unsustainability and the weakness of the housing strategies in a post-socialist environment. Lack of competence, constrained discussions during the strategy drafting and the dominance of ideology over a rational argument were critical factors for the social housing policy failures in the Czech Republic.