Poverty and Debt in Czech – The Parameters of Social Policy
- Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
- When: April 1, 2019, 18:00 – 20:00
A resolution of poverty and social exclusion in the Czech Republic is further away once again. In 2018 a safety net of benefits for the impoverished fell apart, while towns in northern Bohemian and northern Moravia have unleashed a tsunami of declarations of so-called benefits-free zones. Parliament has pushed through “new” rules on debt relief that have made insolvency inaccessible to hundreds of thousands of people facing multiple distraint actions. It has become clear that over 600,000 people are active in the grey economy in the Czech Republic. At the same time, the government has withdrawn a draft law on social housing and wants to support the construction of monitored social housing, which would represent state hostels, and to make ill-conceived changes to the benefits that are the central pillar of housing policy in the Czech Republic and represent a safety net for over 200,000 households in the country…
In this debate on current social policy, we will discuss the visible impact these events and decisions are already having in the field and what effects can be anticipated in the future, as well as what resolutions and measures the government needs to introduce to improve the situation surrounding social exclusion.
Debate participants: Martin Šimáček, Institute for Social Inclusion, director; Alena Zieglerová, ISI, employment expert; Jaroslav Valůch, ISI, security expert. Special guest: Martin Nekola, Centre for Social and Economic Strategies, Department of Public and Social Policy, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague.
Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the Institute for Social Inclusion.