Mrs Elżbieta S. (she does not want her surname to appear in the article – editor’s note) wandered from rented room to rented room from 2000 onward. For some time, she lived with her three children at her parents’ home. “It was cramped. There was not enough space,” she recalls. She was very happy when, in 2006, she was offered a municipal apartment. “The place was in a deplorable condition,” she says. “But I wanted to have a roof over my head.
Her current apartment has one drawback: it is divided by a stairwell. Some family members sleep in one room, and some in the other. In winter, the children go from one room to the other through the unheated stairwell. Recently, a tragedy was narrowly avoided. Kinga, Mrs Elżbieta’s six-year-old daughter, tried to turn on the light in the stairwell at night. She fell down the stairs.
A year and a half ago, Oliwier was born. He was born despite the fact that one and a half of Mrs Elżbieta’s ovaries had been removed and doctors had assured her that she would never become pregnant again.
“The children are constantly falling ill,” the woman complains. Her daughter Paulina suffers from asthma and a heart defect (she has a disability certificate and is treated in Wrocław and Karpacz). Oliwier has cyanosis and severe convulsions. To make matters worse, doctors diagnosed Mrs Elżbieta with cervical cancer. During the operation, it turned out that the situation was even worse than suspected. Her uterus was removed. The woman will soon have to go to hospital again.
In order to care for her children better, Mrs Elżbieta began trying to obtain another apartment (as she puts it, “in one section”). She met with Bolesławiec Deputy Mayor Wiesław Ogrodnik about the matter. According to her, the official promised that the issue would be treated as a priority. However, nothing of the sort happened.
The case was taken up by Jadwiga Bobek, president of the Bolesławiec branch of the Friends of Children Society, and Ewa Ołenicz-Bernacka, a city councillor. Both intervened with Deputy Mayor Maciej Małkowski. They also spoke with Grażyna Strzyżewska, head of the Municipal Department of the City Hall, and Jadwiga Maćkowiak, head of the Housing Department of the Municipal Housing Management Establishment. They were told that Mrs Elżbieta’s apartment had too much floor space per person and that other people were in even worse situations. “What could be worse?” wonders Jadwiga Bobek. “Officials showed this woman complete indifference,” adds Ewa Ołenicz-Bernacka.
Mrs Elżbieta does not intend to give up. “The children are the most important thing to me. No one can accuse me of raising them badly,” she says. “I have a strong will to live and survive. I only thought that this year my family would finally have a normal winter,” she adds sadly.
“There are many such situations. For now, Mrs S. does not meet the conditions set out in the resolution on the rules for renting residential premises,” explains Grażyna Strzyżewska. According to officials’ calculations, the aforementioned apartment provides 6.47 sq m per person. For Mrs Elżbieta to apply for another apartment, this figure must not exceed 5 sq m per person. “The allocation of apartments is carried out in accordance with local law and the statute. This may seem heartless, but some limits have to apply,” emphasizes Jadwiga Maćkowiak. “All municipalities set some kind of limit.
The situation may change, because Mrs Elżbieta and Oliwier are soon due to receive disability certificates (in that case, residential space is calculated somewhat differently – editor’s note). “At present, around 240 people who meet the space and income requirements are waiting for an apartment,” says the head of the Housing Department of MZGM. “I understand that for someone submitting an application, their own case is the most important, but we have to treat everyone equally. I assure you that Mrs S. is not the only person in such a difficult situation,” she adds.
We will return to this case.
(information ii)