After waiting years for social housing, Russians are losing their place in line to veterans of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine
At the end of August, Dmitry Klevtsov, the deputy chairman of the St. Petersburg Housing Committee, announced that since 2019, the waiting list for subsidized housing had halved, dropping from 146,700 to 78,600 families. “The reduction in the number of families on the housing register reflects the positive changes we’ve made,” Klevtsov said. However, official reports don’t seem to align with the reality on the ground. The independent outlet Bumaga spoke with lawyers and St. Petersburg residents who are struggling to even get on the list — all while veterans of the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine receive priority housing. Meduza shares key insights from the outlet’s reporting.
In 1977, Elza received a two-room apartment from the factory where she worked most of her life, her daughter Marianna told Bumaga. As a child in the 1930s, she lived through the confiscation of her family’s property and her father’s execution. In the 1940s, according to her daughter, Elza survived a German-Finnish filtration camp, where she lost her mother. After a period in captivity, she eventually returned to the Soviet Union.
In the 1990s, she obtained ownership of her apartment through privatization. Now, five people are registered there as residents, though during the summer, it’s just Elza and Marianna. Elza’s grandson and his family, who lack stable housing, usually move into the second room during the school year.
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Four years ago, Elza was diagnosed with an inoperable tumor in her leg, adding to her already long list of health problems, Marianna explained. In recent years, Elza stopped going outside because she couldn’t manage the stairs to their third-floor apartment. After her diagnosis, she could barely walk at all.
Marianna described the apartment as a “sardine can,” saying it’s impossible to provide proper care for a sick person in such cramped conditions. She sought legal advice, but getting her mother on the waitlist for improved housing has proven difficult.
“By law, as a disabled person and widow of a war veteran, Elza is entitled to an apartment and a plot of land without waiting in line,” explained lawyer Sergey Tversky. “But the cost is high, and the authorities are doing everything they can to refuse.”
According to Tversky, the family took the case to court, but the judge ruled that Elza had one square meter more than allowed her to qualify for housing assistance. The lawyer noted that in the past, exceptions were often made for disabled individuals, but that’s no longer the case. Recently, two more minor children have been registered in the apartment, and the family plans to appeal the court’s decision.
Any pretext for refusal
According to St. Petersburg law, applicants must meet specific criteria to qualify for a place on the waitlist for subsidized improved housing. They need to have lived in the city permanently for at least 10 years, be eligible for benefits or classified as low-income, and meet certain space requirements. For private apartments, this means having less than nine square meters (97 square feet) of living space per person, while in communal apartments, the threshold is less than 15 square meters (161 square feet). Additionally, they can’t have “worsened” their housing conditions, such as by downsizing their living space, within the past five years.
Elza’s application was denied because her living space exceeded the maximum allowance — the most common reason given for refusals, according to lawyer Elizaveta Karachevtseva. The next most frequent reason for denials is the “worsening” of housing conditions. In such cases, the law requires that a family live in these conditions for at least five years. Bureaucratic issues, such as incomplete paperwork, also lead to rejections. In some cases, families have been denied a spot on the list simply because one member didn’t give consent for processing their personal data.
Karachevtseva notes that in recent years, officials have increasingly been counting any property owned by estranged fathers as part of a family’s official living space, even if the fathers have no contact with their children, aren’t married to the mothers, and don’t pay child support. Some administrations have refused to place women with children on the housing list because they were unable to provide the father’s passport.
“I often come across situations where anything that can be added to my clients’ living space calculation is included — rightfully or not,” says Karachevtseva. “We often have to prove in court why a particular person is not part of the family and why their living space shouldn’t be included in the calculation.”
Priority for veterans
For Elza and her family, a court victory and being placed on the housing list would guarantee them a new apartment. But for another interviewee, Yulia, getting on the list is only half the battle. Yulia is a musician and music school teacher. She lives in a 24-square-meter (258-square-foot) room with her husband and two children, and she’s expecting a third. They can’t afford to rent an apartment as her husband doesn’t have a stable job.
Yulia has only been an officially registered resident of St. Petersburg for six years, and the court has refused to accept other evidence of her required 10-year residency, including property documents. Her claim has already been rejected twice. The biggest hurdle is that Yulia doesn’t fall into any priority category. Even if the court rules in her favor, she could still be waiting for a new apartment for decades.
According to lawyer Elizaveta Karachevtseva, non-priority applicants who first applied for housing back in 1981 are just now receiving apartments. Families with disabled children and World War II veterans, however, are receiving housing at record speed, with wait times this year shrinking to just a few months.
Since 2022, the number of people jumping ahead of the general housing assistance queue has surged. Veterans, including those from Russia’s war in Ukraine, have been added to the priority list, pushing others further back. In an interview with a local outlet, combat veteran Alexey Lebedev said that his family had been waiting over six years for better housing. In 2022, Lebedev was mobilized, then demobilized in November 2023 after the birth of his third child. In June 2024, he received an apartment out of turn.
After handing over keys to Alexey and 11 other veterans, St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov promised that by the end of this year, all veterans on the housing list would receive their apartments. This means the chances for other applicants to get new housing are shrinking even further.
St. Petersburg’s 2023 housing plan shows the city provided 1,952 apartments to people on the waitlist. Of these, 680 went to orphans, 41 to World War II veterans, 38 to people whose homes were transferred to religious organizations, 362 to large families, 194 to families with disabled children, 40 to individuals with disabilities, 107 to combat veterans, and six to families of deceased veterans. Another 336 apartments were allocated to other priority applicants, meaning a mere 147 apartments went to those in the general queue.
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Story by Anastasia Zhigulina for Bumaga