By Valeriy Kostyukevich, Den Newspaper
№142, Tuesday, 12 August, 2008
http://www.day.kiev.ua/205890/

When President Viktor Yushchenko initiated the launch of Warming a Child with Love, which is a joint project being realized by the government businesses, it was quite obvious that the success would depend on the financial support provided for the cause. We reported recently about proactive participation of Rinat Akhmetov’s Foundation for Development of Ukraine in ensuring proper housing for large families in Zakarpatye Region.

Zhitomir Oblast was not that lucky, since the rich “assigned” for the region as well as many others had rejected to contribute to the project. Although, Olga Serdyukova heading the Regional Office of the Charitable Foundation Warming a Child with Love reported to Den that Zhitomir-born Chairman of ProminvestbankVladimir Matviyenko donated UAH 2m.

Leaders of regional and district state administrations started approaching local businessmen that announced desire to help and donate several thousand hrivnas.

Director of the Foundation Olga Serdyukova is a well-known entrepreneur in Zhitomir region (she heads Anna Company) and has 4 children. She has made a contribution too. Administration for Family, Youth, and Sports, as well as its local departments were the major governmental partner. It turned out that 25 families (with 263 children) out of 38 large families with ten children and more need to have their housing conditions improved. Three families have already received new houses, another seven had their houses repaired (local authorities and businessmen from Rodomyshl district were especially helpful), one or two more families will celebrate housewarmings soon.

Sudden public accusations appeared in media as for the first two purchased housings for the Danyuk family (Orepy village, Novohrad-Volynsk district) and the Korniychuk family (Novoselky village, Chernyakhovsk district). Editions would allege three or four times more funds had been paid for the houses than it could be.

The amounts look quite impressive for rural area at first blush. The first house cost UAH 450,000, the second one - UAH 360,000, especially as there was no gas supply and some urban amenities.

The situation with buying new houses for large families is not that easy as it may seem to ignorants, explains Olga Serdyukova. The major requirement is ensure the house is spacious and meets certain sanitary standards. Each person must have 13.65 sq,m. in cities and 7,8 sq.m. in villages. Both villages and cities (Korosten, for instance) number very few buildings of the kind. Big families don’t want to leave their home villages. House owners mark up the prices once they realize that sale is negotiated by a charity. If anything comes up at a lower price, it is quite often not what large families need or requires expensive major repair and completion.

So, dealing actually with the task of the government, charities face market conditions when the price for housing, i.e. a good deed intended for many children, depends on the current supply/demand ratio and position of a seller. The Foundation is also guided by the information on average housing price fixed by the local government as well as an independent expert opinion and appraisal of inventory agencies. In all above cases the appraisals were close to the actually paid amounts.

The Foundation was audited by the Secretariat of the President (project supervisor) and Prosecutor General’s Office that detected no violations and highly evaluated its transparency. Ms Serdyukova speaks about a paradox that it is easier and much cheaper to buy a house for a large family at the sea-coast of Croatia (online information) than in Zhitomir Oblast.

Therefore, a question should be put to the President Viktor Yushchenko whether it was worth while setting tight deadlines to local governments and benefactors to improve housing conditions for large families? As it deprives them of a chance to wait until the prices go down or a seller cuts the price.