Georgia’s socially- and housing vulnerable population’s substandard or largely non-existent housing (especially with regard to the internally displaced persons (IDPs)) has been a recurring problem for the country for the last two decades. While, on the one hand, the capacities of the central authorities are limited in terms of devising various housing solutions for the vulnerable population, the municipal authorities, on the other hand, do not own any housing stock, lack housing-related data and respective aptitude to solve the local housing problems in a sustainable manner.
It was with the purpose of helping the Government of Georgia alleviate the housing problems of its homeless population that SDC’s Humanitarian Aid initiated an innovative “Social Housing in a Supportive Environment (SHSE)” project in 2007. As a result, during 2008-2013, SDC has constructed 19 municipal-owned social houses for 168 homeless and socially vulnerable families in Tbilisi, Batumi, Kutaisi, Zugdidi, Rustavi, Bolnisi and Gori.
As part of its phase-out from Georgia planned by the end of 2016 and in response to the municipalities’ growing demands to equip them with technical knowledge and know-how to proceed independently in future, SDC’s Humanitarian Aid embarked on a final phase of the project “Provision of Expertise to the Local Authorities in the Field of Social Housing”.
While the given phase builds on the cooperation between the different governmental and academic institutions, the “Urban Planning and Architectural Standards for Social Housing Architectural Design” are considered to be one of its main achievements. The elaboration of these standards has been commissioned by SDC as part of its Study “Social Housing – Georgian Reality against the International Context” (Vladimer Vardosanidze, Elena Darjania, Tbilisi, August 2013).
The standards have been endorsed by the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia as they provide a frame of operation for all the private and legal entities interested in constructing social housing in Georgia.
As of February 2015, the standards are available on the Ministry’s web-site
