After Giving Homes to the Homeless, Armenia Government Declares Plans to Help Socially Disadvantaged

The Armenian government approved a decision at its regular Thursday meeting today which set Nov. 1, 2011, as the last day for families affected by the 1988 earthquake set to receive apartments by the state in the city of Gyumri and the village of Akhuryan to present the necessary documents on family members in order to receive the apartments designated for them.

 

“We are implementing the final stage of recovery work in the disaster zone and those resources that we had set aside are being consumed. Our plan was to secure apartments for 7,000 homeless families. As a result, we are fully implementing our obligations to the homeless; in particular, to those families that correspond to the criteria we defined. We are fully aware that compiling these lists is a very difficult process and is conditioned by the fact that those who became homeless as a result of the catastrophe and families that are socially disadvantaged are trying to take advantage of this program, and it’s very difficult to make that division. That’s why we have other social programs, and yesterday the Minister of Urban Development declared at the National Assembly that the ministerial committee also discussed the problem of multiple-dwelling buildings.

 

“In Armenia we have more than 21,000 multiple-dwelling buildings, and, regretfully, a significant portion of these were built during the Khrushchev years — the level of their physical wear-and-tear is quite high and there is a serious threat of their becoming accident-prone. For this reason, completing this program in 2012, we already initiated implementation of the new [program]. This concept has received the green light in the ministerial committee; we will organize a public discussion; and we will now be obliged to allocate funds each year to resolve the problems of multi-dwelling buildings. Socially disadvantaged families should also know that we resolved the problem of homelessness at this stage, but in the second stage, naturally, in the first place, socially disadvantaged families, who have such problems, will be the focus of attention,” said RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan, according to an press release on the Armenian government’s official website.