Olena Shuliak: "For the First Time, Ukraine’s Housing Policy Will Operate Under European Rules"

The Law "On the Basic Principles of Housing Policy" is being called the most significant housing reform since Ukraine gained independence. What does it change for people who currently lack housing of their own?

First and foremost, I want to emphasize that we finally repealed the Housing Code of 1983. This was a Soviet-era document which had been followed by our country for over forty years and got people stuck in apartment queues, where people had been waiting for decades but did not get their housing. This was an imitation of care for people, rather than a real mechanism.

The new law changes the very philosophy. The state no longer promises abstract "free housing someday," but is building a system of real tools. Free housing from the state is retained only for clearly defined categories – servicemen, rescuers, police officers, and orphans. For everyone else who has been waiting in queues for years, two fundamentally new forms are being introduced: affordable housing, which can be purchased on preferential terms, and social housing, which can be used under social rent conditions.

For a person without housing their own, this means a transition from waiting to a real choice. Instead of a paper queue, they get several effective ways to resolve their housing issues – the same ones which have been working in EU countries for decades. In other words, we are building housing policy based on the European model, and this is one of our clear steps toward EU membership.

The document provides for several instruments at once: subsidized mortgages, financial leasing, social rent, and rent-to-own schemes. How can a person understand which mechanism is right for them? Where can they apply for a consultation?

The logic is simple: the instrument depends on whether a person can purchase housing and on what conditions. If a family has a stable income and is ready to become an owner, this falls under the affordable housing block: several subsidized mortgages, an updated mechanism of house-building cooperatives, and financial leasing. If a person is not able to buy housing now, social rent is provided for them.

To make this choice independent from authority management, the heart of our reform serves as a digitalization. It will be a kind of digital hub that will bring together data on individuals, the existing housing stock, and all available programs, and will automatically interact with government registries. People will be able to see for themselves which government or local community programs are available to them, and the system will ensure that their place in line and their right to support are recorded and protected.

Individuals can turn to their local community and housing providers for advice and direct housing assistance. The law provides for two types of such operators: social housing operators (which will be municipal nonprofit organizations working with vulnerable groups) and affordable housing operators—businesses. It is this transparent digital approach that meets EU standards for integrity and accountability.

Are there restrictions on family income, housing value, floor area, or the region where state support can be used?

It is important to clearly understand the nature of the adopted law: it is a framework law. This is baseline legislation that sets the principles and architecture of the reform, but does not prescribe specific numbers. That is why in the law itself, you will find neither a formula for calculating rent, nor selection criteria, nor space standards. The law delegates the development of these mechanisms and all practical implementation to the Cabinet of Ministers.

Key parameters of social housing — specifically, the procedure for calculating rent, square footage norms, and the priority order for providing housing — will be determined by a separate, special law, "On the Social Housing Stock." Work on it is currently underway, with its adoption planned for the first quarter of 2027, making it the second housing indicator of our program with the European Union (Ukraine Facility). Thus, specific limits on income, value, and area will become final precisely at that stage. This is not a delay, but a consistent European practice: first establishing transparent principles, and then filling them with details through bylaws and special laws.

The Law provides for compensation of up to 100% of the social rent. Who can count on such support, and under what conditions?

The basic principle of social rent is as follows: the payment cannot exceed 30% of a family's income. Everything above this threshold will be compensated by the state or local community. In other words, for a family with a low income, the level of compensation can reach 70%, and for the most vulnerable categories, it can reach 100%, when social rent becomes essentially free.

The final criteria for who exactly and under what conditions will receive maximum support will be determined by that same special law on the social housing fund, together with the procedures of the Cabinet of Ministers. However, the very design is already structured so that support is targeted: the more a person needs it, the more they receive. This aligns with the European approach to social housing, where the state acts as a safety net for its citizens. Another important point: payments for social rent do not disappear; instead, they go into a special revolving fund used to build new social housing. In other words, the system is self-sustaining.

The law pays special attention to internally displaced persons, veterans, and people who have lost their homes due to the war. What benefits or priorities does this law provide for them?

These categories are indeed at the heart of the reform, as it was the full-scale invasion that exposed the severity of the housing issue. Our commitments here are also anchored in the Ukraine Facility program through separate indicators with specific funding amounts. By the end of 2027, at least €450 million must be allocated from the state budget to provide housing for Group I and II disabled persons who defended Ukraine, family members of fallen defenders, and internally displaced persons who defended the state, along with their families. At least another €600 million is allocated for compensation for destroyed housing under the eVidnovlennya program. In total, this involves over UAH 43 billion that the state is obligated to direct toward meeting people's housing needs.

In addition to direct compensation, veterans, IDPs, and people who have lost their homes will have priority access to the new instruments: to social rent as well as to specialized programs such as eOselya, the terms of which have already been extended for internally displaced persons.

For example, under the updated eOselya program for internally displaced persons and residents of frontline areas, the state compensates up to 70% of the down payment (but no more than 30% of the property value), as well as 70% of monthly payments during the first year of the loan. For such families, the subsidized mortgage is available at 7% per annum. This effectively removes the biggest barrier for first-time homebuyers — specifically, the need to immediately collect a large sum for a down payment. This is precisely how the state lends a helping hand to those who lost their homes due to the war and are starting over from scratch.

For me, it is fundamental that we are talking not about one-off aid, but about a sustainable system where a defender or an internally displaced person has a real, guaranteed path to a roof of their own over their heads.

eOselya and eVidnovlennya: is it possible to use several instruments at the same time, combining them with the new housing policy, or will people have to choose only one type of government support?

The logic is not to force a person to choose just one option, but to give them the ability to stack these instruments like building blocks for their specific situation. eVidnovlennya and eOselya can already be combined today: for example, if the housing a person wants to buy costs more than the eVidnovlennya certificate they received, this certificate can be used as a down payment, and the difference can be covered by a subsidized eOselya loan. The government has already adopted amendments that allow combining the housing component for IDPs with the eOselya program. 

There is only one fundamental restriction, and it is dictated by international law standards: the prohibition of double compensation. That is, you cannot receive money twice for the exact same loss, but you can combine different instruments to achieve a single goal — namely, a home of your own. The new housing policy creates a unified framework for this: all programs (state, local, and credit) are brought together into a single digital space where people can clearly see what can be combined and how.

What significance does this reform have for Ukraine's European integration and the fulfillment of our commitments to the European Union? 

The significance is direct and immediate. The housing reform is part of our commitments under the Ukraine Facility program, on which €50 billion in European Union support for 2024–2027 depends. The program sets four distinct housing indicators with strict deadlines. The first is the adoption of the framework law "On the Basic Principles of Housing Policy," which we have already passed. The next is the law on the social housing fund. In other words, this is not a reform that will happen sometime in the future, but concrete steps with specific dates that Ukraine is obligated to implement, and upon which the financing of our recovery depends.

But I would not reduce everything solely to money. The mechanisms we are introducing — namely social rent, rent-to-own, the social housing fund, housing operators, and digital transparency — are all European standards of housing policy. We are abandoning the Soviet legacy and building a system that has proven its effectiveness in EU countries for decades. Essentially, by reforming the housing sector, we are not merely fulfilling a formal requirement, but making people's lives in Ukraine structured according to European rules. And that, in my view, is the best definition of what true European integration is.