Housing Crisis • Maklev: "The mayor doesn't want Haredi? Force him" • Watch

February 8, 2022   

At the initiative of Degel Hatorah MKs Uri Maklev, Yaakov Asher and Yitzhak Pindros, the Knesset Economics Committee discussed the housing challenges of the Haredi public this morning (Tuesday). Dramatic statistic: You could be losing hundreds of thousands of NIS that belong to you The chairman of the committee, MK Michael Biton, said: "The Haredi housing crisis is ours for all of us. Unfortunately, not every locality is open to Haredis." The Director General of the Ministry of Housing, Aviad Friedman, presented a figure according to which the cost of a secular resident in the city is about NIS 9,000, while the cost of a Haredi resident is NIS 30,000. The initiator of the discussion, MK Maklev: "If the data is incorrect, a Haredi citizen receives less in a structured way. There is only one employee in the Haredi division of the Ministry of Housing. Maybe that's the problem?" Maklev: "The situation requires an immediate solution. Families live in 15-meter apartments in parking lots, and the only window is a narrow opening. People cannot do Shabbat at home, because there is no place for a pallet to sit on. If they were coming from 'animal cruelty', they would not approve of it. Children have nowhere to crawl, so there is great urgency here. "It is true that we have unique needs, but it is not in the sky. It is possible to have multiple uses on the upper floors, such as a milk drop and more. With proper planning, things are possible. The solutions exist. The need is large-scale planning and marketing. Massive marketing. It is not possible to market two hundred housing units, but thousands of units together. This planning that you are presenting here does not meet the current shortage. Tens of thousands of housing units are needed immediately." Maklev added: "If the mayor does not want the Haredi public, it is necessary to force it. Even when housing is marketed in Haredi neighborhoods, there are buyers who are not Haredi, so even what is already there is taken from them. "In Kiryat Yearim - look at the state decision. There is no greater theft of the Hersh sheep than this. In the Arab sector, they determined that the locals are up to 75 percent, perhaps that is the solution. In urban renewal, there is something to bring solutions." MK Asher told the Director General of the Ministry of Housing: "Mayors are not willing to give neighborhoods to the ultra-Orthodox. In the government decision that I initiated in 2016, we introduced incentives for authorities not to discriminate against the ultra-Orthodox, why don't we do that? If they give the mayor an incentive budget for development in exchange for building a Haredi neighborhood - he will build." In response to the statements of the Director General of the Ministry of Housing, who declared the construction of 7,900 housing units for the Haredi public that are intended for marketing, with the majority in the city of Elad - Deputy Mayor Avi Stern, Chairman of the Planning and Construction Committee, updated that in Elad too there are major barriers that significantly delay the plans. "The Haredi demand is to create a real and quick housing solution to the huge shortage that already exists in the sector today," he said. The Chairman of the Economic Committee summed up the discussion: "If out of 30 mayors only 2 are willing to plan neighborhoods for the Haredi, there is no choice but to establish a new Haredi city, and back it up with profitable commercial space like Yaakov did for Bnei Brak. We need to appoint developers in the ministry to promote this." Do you also want to join the tens of millions of people who have been freed from the prison of smoke? Click here >>>>>>