IMPLEMENTING HOUSING ALLOWANCES IN RUSSI (Urban Institute Reports)

Argues that privatization of state and municipal housing in the Russian Federation is but one of the key elements of housing policy and that it is necessary to plan now for the future of the rental sector. Explains housing reforms to date (August 1992) and offers specific recommendations by: describing current rents and their relationship to family income; establishing the feasibility of creating a program for increasing rents and introducing payment of housing allowance to the population (using simulations conducted for Moscow City); and analyzing alternative versions of a housing allowance program to determine their effectiveness and results. Also puts Russia's housing allowances program into broader context by contrasting the circumstances in which housing allowance programs are being introduced in Eastern Europe with conditions existing in North America and Western Europe in the 1970s, when allowances were introduced in many of those countries.