Habitat for Humanity Armenia - Habitat for Humanity Armenia seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from Armenia, and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action

Habitat for Humanity Armenia seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from Armenia, and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action www.habitat.am

Apartment Buildings Renovation

Project overview: Amongst the numerous issues faced in Armenia after the collapse of the Soviet Union was the serious housing issue. Given the difficult economic situation, the Armenian Government was interested in disposing of the burden of the Apartment Building management and maintenance and the main part of the housing stock in Armenia was privatized.

On one hand, the privatization initiative by the Government was positive for former tenants: they became owners of apartments which in turn increased their assets; on the other hand, most of the former state owned apartment buildings needed serious renovations for the common areas. The new owners did not have any knowledge, traditions, or experience of maintaining their common assets, additionally; they could not afford to invest in common areas or their privatized apartments due to the difficult economic situation as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh.

Currently, management and maintenance of apartment buildings is one of the priorities for the Government of Armenia. A comprehensive study of apartment buildings conditions by the Government in April-May 2007 showed that the technical conditions of 64.1% of all apartment buildings was estimated as satisfactory and 29.5%- as bad. Only 6.4% of buildings were estimated to have good or excellent technical conditions.

Project aim: the project aims to initiate common area revitalization and building stabilization of condominium buildings and will be implemented through the introduction of a renovation loan product that will allow families to improve their living conditions. This project will support 200 families (800 people) by renovating defective structural and non-structural components of 3 separate apartment buildings in the city of Vanadzor.

Progress: HFH Armenia has started the implementation of the project from July 2011.

Partnership: The project will be implemented in partnership with Urban Foundation for Sustainable Development which supports the project implementation process, conducting training for selected partner families and “Inecobank” CJSC to facilitate the common area loans processing by families selection.