Ahmad Tavakoli: Hear the sound of the tenants' bones breaking

A member of the Expediency Discernment Council says the government has not even bothered to watch the disaster of people becoming homeless. He called on the three branches of government, the Expediency Discernment Council, and the Guardian Council to hear the cries of the lower deciles and come up with a solution to adjust rents. 

Ahmad Tavakoli, head of the non-governmental organization "Justice and Transparency Watch", has written an open letter to the heads of the three branches of government, the Guardian Council, and the Expediency Discernment Assembly about the significant increase in marginalization in cities.

He says that the “responsible group” must hear the sounds of the tenants’ bones breaking and the cries for help from the poor: “The government has not even bothered to watch and has practically declared neutrality. Of course, after the resignation of that minister who is obsessed with capitalism and the arrival of the new Minister of Roads and Urban Development, some positive measures have been taken, which are in no way responsible for the disaster of homelessness after the currency crisis.”

Tavakoli is referring to Abbas Akhundi, the minister who is obsessed with the capitalist system, whom parliamentarians failed to impeach three times, but he himself resigned in October 2018. Akhundi was accused by critics of negligence in regulating supply and demand in the housing market.

The former head of the Majlis Research Center attributed the currency fluctuations and the terrible chaos in the housing market to the owners raising rents, and emphasized that the unfairness of some landlords has created unbearable conditions for tenants: "Summer is the season for renewing many rental contracts. There are so many families who are renting and who have not been able to meet the landlords' amazing conditions. The observations are very painful and alarming, and if measures are not taken quickly, several million marginalized people will soon be added to the 11 million marginalized people around the cities."

In his open letter, Tavakoli writes that having shelter has become a great calamity for people: “In 1999, if each household saved one-third of its monthly income, the waiting period for owning a home would have been 12 years. The waiting period increased to 31 years in 2015… It can be said with certainty that the lower deciles of society will never own a home without social support and government intervention… This calamity occurred when a significant part of the demand had been met by the previous government with Mehr housing and the 8.0-magnitude earthquake of 2018 had not yet hit the foreign exchange market. Now, suddenly doubling or tripling rents has become common. In this situation, the increase in embezzlement, theft, bribery, fraud, and other types of financial crimes should not come as a surprise.”

Housing market lock

In the latest Central Bank report, the average price of a square meter of a residential unit in Tehran in July 2019 was announced as 13.35 million Tomans, which means a 91 percent increase compared to last year and a 215 percent increase compared to 2016.

Mohammad Eslami, Iran's Minister of Roads and Urban Development, has previously said that renting a house consumes 80 percent of people's income and that the poverty imposed on families without housing has social consequences and harms.

 The price surge in the spring of 2018 caused many tenant households to move out of Tehran and into the cities. In the fall of 2018, it was announced that the housing price increase had also spread to the south of the city and areas where low-income groups live. For example, in District 9 of Tehran, including the Hashemi, Mehrabad, and Simatariji neighborhoods, rents and purchase prices have increased by 111 percent.

In his open letter, Tavakoli proposed that capital gains in the land and housing sectors be taxed at a rate higher than 25 percent in the industrial sector, so that the stagnant capital allocated to housing speculation could be converted into productive industrial capital. Another solution he proposed was to set an appropriate tax on empty houses to create an incentive to offer 2.6 million empty units for sale or rent and to create a balance between supply and demand. He considered allocating funds to help house the “underprivileged” as an absolute necessity and the government’s definitive duty to ensure that this group has access to shelter.

According to Article 31 of the Constitution, having housing commensurate with needs is the right of every Iranian individual and family, and the government is obligated to provide the basis for implementing this principle by giving priority to those who are most in need, especially rural residents and workers.

Ahmad Tavakoli warned about the wave of tenants living on the outskirts, while a few months ago, the alarm bells of rooftop sleeping and shantytown living were sounded in Tehran. Housing agencies reported on the new way of living among workers and students, and the media wrote that in some poor and underprivileged areas of Tehran, owners were renting out prefabricated and unsafe rooms to the lower deciles of society.

Source: DW