Niaz Tchezhia is an IDP from Abkhazia. He has been waiting for the flat for eight years already. He said the Ministry of IDPs from Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia promised to give a flat but the exact date is not known so far.

“I live in Urta village in Zugdidi district with my 30-year-old son. The flat owner has deceased but his son lives in the town. When the house owner died, the son decided to sell it. I wanted to buy it but the Ministry did not give enough money to me. I am a sick woman with Asthma, heart disease and palsy. They are aware of everything but say that my son and I deserve only one room flat. Why should they give me only one room flat?” Niaz Tchezhia asked.

Her only income is social allowance and pension. Very often she has to take pensions of several months in advance as a loan. “I took pension of 25 months in advance because of extreme poverty. Now I get only 75 lari per month. It is not enough for my medicines. My son does not work either,” Niaz Tchezhia said.

Khaliania Tchumburia has already received two-room flat from the state. She said formal process before getting the flat is very complicated. “Living without shelter is very difficult for everybody. Before we received the flat, we had to take some formal procedures: a representative of the Ministry came and interviewed us, evaluated our living and social conditions based on which he granted relevant rate to us. Afterwards, [the Ministry] gave flat to us. It is not an easy process particularly for the families with underage children or sick people. I hope all internally displaced families will receive the flats and our economic problems will be resolved.”

2015 budget of the Ministry of IDPs is 70 million lari. One of the main priorities of the Ministry is to satisfy IDP families with accommodation. Head of the department for IDP issues Murad Ablotia said in order to get an accommodation, IDP family must meet some criteria: “There are special social criteria to receive a flat. They are hard social conditions like: a family rents a flat, or lives in strategically important buildings or in a space of a private owner, from where IDPs are to be evicted. According to the social criteria the commission evaluates the income of the family, health conditions of family members, whether they have social status, if there is a retired person in the family or patient with psychic or oncologic disease. According to those criteria, the commission pays attention to the fact if a family member died in the war or military operations or if a family member has received awards for military operations; having evaluated all data the commission grants relevant rate to the family.”

The commission makes decisions about each family individually.

Public Defender’s Office [PDO] also takes part in the process. Representative of the PDO, coordinator of the project on internally displaced persons Tornike Tsagareishvili said the Ombudsman’s office monitors the issues of IDPs and if violation is observed any person can apply to their office. When studying the application, the PDO can even re-evaluate the granted rate to the IDP family.

“Public Defender is member of the commission on studying the cases of IDPs. IDPs mostly complain about incorrectly granted rate. We have also received similar complaints but the office has not yet discovered any miscarriages in the evaluation process. PDO monitors the process but so far we have no information about significant violations,” representative of the PDO Tornike Tsagareishvili said.

Deputy head of the Adjara-Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti territorial body at the Ministry of IDPs, Accommodation and Refugees Zurab Gergedava said high number of IDP families wait for flats but there are families among them who were partly satisfied with flats. “There are 23 000 families in Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti-Adjara region who wait for flats. Among them are partly satisfied families, who received some accommodations in 2009, 2010 and in 2011. After number of family members increased and the received space became too little for them, they applied for more space.”

In accordance to the action plan of the 2015-2016 state strategy with regards to the IDPs from occupied territories, IDPs shall receive flats within reasonable timeframe.

Nino Tsotsoria