Building a Housing Reform Movement in Russia from the Ground Up

In the Russian town of Chita, the Municipal Institute of Public Government demonstrates the impact a real civic movement, armed with good research, can have on a community. Using their own research on self-government and housing rights in the city, the institute helped create a genuine civic initiative advocating for the creation of a community council in the city’s Severny microregion. A civic organization similar to the neighborhood associations familiar in the United States, local community councils are intended to provide a public forum to meet with government and address local housing issues on a regular basis, and to offer citizens notice and comment on proposed policy changes.

Through a $15,000 grant from USAID’s Civil Society Support Program in Russia (CSSP), administered by IREX, the Municipal Institute teamed up with a local think tank, the Philosophical and Cultural Laboratory, to conduct a community needs assessment in Chita. Their findings led them to a specific strategy for creating community councils, and Severny microregion was selected for a pilot project.

Using their research findings as an advocacy tool, the Municipal Institute established links with a variety of stakeholders to develop their proposal, from the mayor’s office to local housing associations to other NGOs. Even more importantly, they used mass media and public events to reach out to members of their community in the Severny Microregion and create a popular momentum for the public council. According to Director of the Municipal Institute of Public Government Valentina Pugach, “Public participation was the key. If this was just an initiative by a couple of small NGOs, no one would have cared. But we conducted an advertising campaign that really hit a nerve with people, and they came out to support us.” Chita’s city government responded to popular sentiment and approved the measure in August 2007.

The pilot project has taken root and continues to grow long after the IREX grant period ended. The Chita mayor’s office provided a three-room office for the council’s use, which the Municipal Institute renovated through local in-kind donations and opened in December. The office will provide a permanent resource and information center for residents of the entire microregion.

Among services offered at this center will be weekly meetings for residents with various municipal specialists on housing and physical maintenance issues; counseling, conflict resolution, and legal advising services for residents; regular meetings of the Community Council; trainings and seminars for housing association directors, community leaders, and other community members; and a weekly meeting place for residents and government officials.

The Severny Microregion Community Council has become a model for other self-government initiatives throughout the city. “We are developing similar projects for the other microregions in Chita,” Pugach says. “And we’re establishing links with other housing associations outside of Chita, to bring the model to other cities.” Among the Municipal’s growing link are the Pacific Housing Alliance, a coalition of NGOs in the Russian Far East working on housing reform issues and also a CSSP grantee.

This combination of community-based advocacy, non-confrontational outreach to power centers, and specific policy recommendations based on solid, evidence-based research, demonstrates the best of what NGOs in Russia can accomplish. It has allowed one small NGO to bring consensus for progressive change to its community, and then expand into different communities, using its models to seed further community development initiatives throughout Chita and beyond.