Government Mulls Reviving Youth Housing Via Private Companies

The transitional government is moving towards reviving the long-halted youth housing programme by opening it to investment by private companies in an attempt to overcome the severe funding crisis that has hindered its completion.

The Youth Housing project, launched in 2002 under Legislative Decree No. 46 to provide affordable housing and installment plans for young people, is one of the most prominent, unfinished public housing schemes. Around 20,000 subscribers out of 55,000 are still waiting to receive their flats, while implementation has come to a complete stop at major sites in several governorates.

Youth housing is part of Syria’s social housing programme and was established as a model to support young people and enable them to obtain housing at prices matching their incomes. The General Housing Establishment (GHE) was assigned to implement it under its founding Law No. 26, which was amended in 2015. The law stipulated that the project be funded 30 percent by subscribers’ instalments, 30 percent by the Public Debt Fund without interest, and 40 percent by the GHE itself. To carry this out, the GHE signed contracts with state-owned construction bodies such as the Military Housing Establishment (MHE) and the General Construction Company.

However, this funding structure did not last long. The Public Debt Fund covered only around 20 percent of its pledged share, while subscribers contributed no more than five percent of theirs, forcing the GHE to bear the largest part of the costs. This drained its liquidity and brought work on nearly all projects to a standstill.

Facing this reality, the transitional government’s Ministry of Housing prepared a detailed memorandum proposing to offer the Youth Housing Project for investment with private companies, viewing it as the only available option to complete it amid the current financial shortfall. A source in the ministry told The Syria Report that the project requires around SYP 1 trillion, equivalent to around USD 85 million at the current market exchange rate, to be fully completed and closed. Several Arab, particularly Gulf, companies had requested to review the zoning plans for the remaining project sites but had not yet submitted any formal offers, meaning discussions remain at a preliminary stage, the source added.

The GHE is open to expanding investment to include other suspended social housing schemes, such as the Savings Housing and Workers’ Housing projects, the source said. The ministry is considering various forms of partnership with the private sector, including arrangements whereby companies would complete construction in exchange for shares of the commercial areas and service facilities within the project sites – such as shops, restaurants, and public gardens – which could later be exploited to offset the costs of execution.

Legally, the contracts previously signed with the state companies executing the works are still valid and have not yet been terminated. However, the ministry is studying the possibility of ending them amicably if private companies capable of completing the project come forward, or otherwise keeping the existing contracts where implementation has already begun and signing new ones with other firms to complete the unbuilt sections. This would create a flexible contractual framework allowing work to accelerate and easing the burden on the GHE.

The Dimas area in the Damascus countryside stands out as the biggest challenge in this file. Implementation there has almost completely stopped – first due to liquidity shortages and later because of the military presence of the Fourth Division before the fall of the Assad regime. The New Dimas City project lies along the Damascus-Beirut highway and covers 600 hectares. It is considered one of the largest government-housing projects in the Damascus countryside, comprising, according to plans, 350 residential towers containing about 26,000 units, of which 14,300 are allocated to the youth housing programme. The project was launched in 2002 and its foundation stone laid in 2012, but only limited phases have been completed so far. According to the housing ministry source, the current goal is to offer the entire project for investment with a private company capable of finishing it in the shortest possible time.

By contrast, the problems in other provinces appear less complex, as the uncompleted areas are limited and could be finalised quickly if the establishment had sufficient liquidity. The ministry is currently working to reopen subscriptions for previous applicants who were removed due to delayed payments, exempting them from fines to encourage them to resume their financial commitments – an attempt to reactivate the project and restore confidence in the institution.

The situation of affected subscribers reflects the depth of the social crisis caused by the project’s failure. Several expressed frustration at the ongoing delays despite years having passed since their allocations. The allocation of a unit means the conclusion of a contract between the subscriber and the GHE defining each party’s obligations and specifying the location and details of the flat. Allocation generally occurs once the subscriber has paid 30 percent of the property’s value. Yet allocation does not mean that construction has been completed or that delivery is imminent; rather, it serves as a title of ownership provided that the remaining financial obligations are met.

Hassan, one of the subscribers in the Tenth Island Project in Qudsaya near Damascus, said he received his allocation decision in 2018 but has not yet taken possession of his flat, despite promises that it would be delivered within six months. Meanwhile, Ghiath, a subscriber to the Dimas project, is still waiting even to be allocated a flat, saying that the situation now feels like an endless wait. This suffering is repeated among thousands of subscribers who view Youth Housing as a distant dream, after the project turned from a symbol of youth support into an example of the failure of public housing policies.