A gift with a leak: how can orphaned children achieve the right to quality housing
In the city of Revda, Sverdlovsk region, a house built specifically to provide housing for orphaned children was declared an emergency five years after the keys were issued, and cracks appeared in the building immediately after settlement. Five more years have passed since that moment, but the tenants have not been settled. They are told that it is impossible to re-issue apartments to orphaned children, they did not have time to get into the old resettlement program from emergency housing, and a new one is not expected soon. However, experts told Izvestia that there is a way out of this situation — in some regions it was possible to achieve the return of orphaned children to the list of those in need of better housing conditions. Details can be found in the publication's material.
What is the problem with orphanages?
The Sverdlovsk public organization "People's Control" told about the problem of residents of an apartment building on Sadovaya Street, 3, in the city of Revda. The story has been dragging on for several years — the house was built in 2015 specifically to provide housing for orphaned children, they were given the keys, but the building almost immediately began to fall apart. Already in 2020, it was recognized as an emergency, but the residents had already lost the status of orphaned children by that time, of course.
Anna Zerkalova, a resident of the house, received an apartment at 3 Sadovaya Street, along with all the other neighbors. According to her, in the three-storey building, except for one Afghan veteran and two people with disabilities, all the recipients of apartments are children left without parental care.
"We started ringing all the bells already in 2016," she told Izvestia. — The house was originally with a crack that ran through my apartment, from the end of the house. Cracks are now all over the house, the walls are moving away from the supporting structures. There are huge problems with hot water, gusts of pipes in the basement, constant dampness, and midges and mosquitoes in summer. All the children became allergenic, constantly with bronchitis and cough.
Of the 27 apartments, about half are currently uninhabited — people have moved wherever they can. Anna was offered a maneuverable housing — a hostel, but she refused to move there with her four children: she managed to understand that it was definitely not suitable for a large family.
Anna Zerkalova explains that initially the residents of the house hoped that they would be returned to the status of orphans and given other apartments. One of the tenants tried to get it through the court, but he was refused. Now all orphaned children who have received frankly poor housing under the state program are waiting for resettlement under the program for emergency homes.
What resettlement measures are already being taken?
Oksana Vokhmintseva, director of the Housing Construction Fund of the Sverdlovsk Region, told Izvestia that the prosecutor's office of the city of Revda has now filed 15 lawsuits against the administration of the settlement in the interests of citizens living in the house for the provision of new housing. The Foundation, as a participant in shared—equity construction, was recognized as a victim in a criminal case initiated against the management of the developer, Aventa Engineering LLC.
Oksana Vokhmintseva explains that the prosecutor's office is now seeking a decision precisely within the framework of the program on the resettlement of citizens from emergency housing, considering the deadlines set by the administration for the resettlement of residents of the house until 2028 to be illegal. The supervisory authority in court demanded that the resettlement take place no later than December 31, 2025. The court satisfied the demands only partially, and the administration changed the deadline — now until December 31, 2026.
The Housing Construction Fund considers it impossible to return the status of orphaned children to residents, since the law of December 21, 1996 No. 159-FZ "provides for a one-time provision of residential premises for them." At the same time, according to the resettlement program from the emergency housing stock, other apartments are necessarily provided only to those who have housing for social rent, and not owned.
The expert of the direction "Popular Front. Analyst Elena Gladkova notes that the same law No. 159-FZ establishes that residential premises provided to orphaned children must comply with the requirements of housing legislation, be well-maintained, free from the rights of third parties, and comply with sanitary and technical rules and regulations. And if the apartment does not meet these requirements, it "can and should be disputed." However, Olga Budaeva, a lawyer at the charity foundation "Volunteers to Help Orphaned Children", notes that if housing is received and has fallen into disrepair, it is necessary to fight in the status of ordinary citizens, the state no longer considers them orphans.
How orphaned children can get housing again
Kirill Vennikov, secretary and expert of the Commission for the regulation of housing issues of orphaned children and persons from among them of the Public Council under the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation, told Izvestia that there are still opportunities to return them to the list of those in need of improved living conditions.
"There is no clear procedure, but there is a very individual practice in a number of regions," he told Izvestia. — In particular, this has been implemented more than once in the Volgograd region.
The algorithm is approximately as follows, says Kirill Vennikov. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation initiates a criminal case and brings it to a guilty verdict. Orphans in these cases should be recognized as victims. On this basis, and after the entry into force of the guilty verdict, the authorized authority is asked to terminate the contracts and restore the orphans to the housing list. After they have recovered, they can apply either for housing again or for a housing certificate.
It is very important that, as part of the criminal case, the investigator appoints a construction and technical expertise that confirms that the housing does not meet the requirements for construction, technical and sanitary standards. Even better, if it can be proved that the building was originally transferred in a condition that did not meet the requirements, and the defects turned out to be hidden.
— This procedure has not been worked out, so it requires the attention of public figures, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, etc., to bring it to its logical conclusion, — says Kirill Vennikov. — This is really a very difficult question, everything is solved individually and on a whim.
According to him, it is necessary to refer to regulation No. 159-FZ that orphans are provided with comfortable housing. If it did not meet this requirement, it means that the right to it was not truly realized.
— The Investigative Committee has a practice when petitions are sent to representatives of regional authorities to take measures to eliminate the facts that led to the initiation of a criminal case and to restore the rights of specific people to housing, — Kirill Vennikov continues.
He is sure that with the situation in the Revda, it is necessary to follow the path of returning all the victims of the case to the lists of those in need of better housing conditions. The resettlement program from emergency housing is long—term, with indefinite deadlines. While the state's obligation to provide housing for orphaned children comes immediately, the expert emphasizes. There really shouldn't be a queue as such, which has arisen in this matter — it's just a side effect of the inability to provide housing right away.
Oleg Filippov, Chairman of the Opora Russia — Moscow Construction Committee, is confident that the problem should be solved at the level of federal legislation: it is unfair if, having used his right to housing, an orphan cannot resort to it again when there is no fault in the loss of his home.
Are there many similar situations
Kirill Vennikov notes that the problem is hidden, because such complaints are very often tried to extinguish before they go public. They can only be traced in criminal cases initiated by the Investigative Committee. A lot of appeals of this kind are received on a direct line with the president, says Elena Gladkova.
Olga Budaeva notes that similar stories have happened in different regions. She worked with one of these in 2019: at that time, there were good quality houses for sale and three-apartment buildings built specifically for orphaned children, which had neither gas heating nor sewerage, on the street opposite each other. The housing problem was solved only through an appeal to the president.
— Now the law has been changed, it is impossible to provide more than 25% of apartments in each apartment building to orphans, — he said. — This is also one of the guarantees of a high-quality house construction.
Oleg Filippov, however, is sure that it cannot be said that orphanages were designed and built with lower quality than civilian real estate objects: nevertheless, the requirements for them are significantly higher. Nadezhda Kosareva, President of the Institute of Urban Economics Foundation and a member of the Public Council under the Ministry of Construction of Russia, also considers the case in the Revda "rather an exception."
She notes that the law now provides for three possibilities for the subjects of the Russian Federation: the construction of new housing, the provision of housing certificates to citizens, or the purchase of housing on the secondary market. And the problem of the quality of the housing provided is more often associated with the third option, rather than with new construction.
How many orphans are waiting for housing now
Kirill Vennikov notes that as of February 2025, 270,120 people are included in the list of orphaned children who are entitled to housing. Of these, 181,268 people are adults. There are 72,669 orphans who have already reached the age of 23 but have not yet received housing.
The last publicly announced amount needed to provide them with housing is 650 billion rubles, Kirill Vennikov says, but emphasizes that it is more correct to talk about the amount needed for those who have already reached the age of 18, which is just over 400 billion rubles.
—But at the current rate, it will take more than six years to provide housing only for orphaned children, whose right to provide apartments came on October 1, 2024," says Elena Gladkova. — Regional budgets do not have enough funds for this, and orphaned children have to wait for their apartments for years, and sometimes decades.
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