Israeli Public Housing Tenants Push for Law Allowing Discounted Home Purchases

Sharona Yahav, who has lived her entire life in a public housing apartment managed by Amigor in Kiryat Bialik, leads a lively WhatsApp group of fellow public housing tenants. Their main focus is a pending law that would allow them to buy their apartments at a discount. The bill passed its first reading in the Knesset about six months ago, raising hopes, but progress stalled until recent renewed discussions in the Interior Committee, which is set to debate the bill again today.

Yahav’s personal story illustrates the stakes: after her mother, the original leaseholder, passed away from leukemia, Yahav was initially required to vacate the apartment because she was not officially recognized as a tenant. After six years of struggle, she regained her tenancy rights in 2021. Now a disabled single mother, Yahav worries about securing a stable home for her teenage daughter and sees the law as a vital opportunity.

The proposed legislation revives a 1998 temporary law that allowed long-term public housing tenants to purchase their units at subsidized rates. The law aims to enable tenants to pass homes to their children, breaking cycles of poverty, and to refresh the shrinking public housing stock by using proceeds from sales to buy new units. However, the law’s implementation has been repeatedly frozen, largely due to opposition from the Finance Ministry.

The Housing Ministry supports the law but calls for adjustments to ensure the public housing supply does not shrink, fearing that sales without simultaneous investment in new units would harm future eligible families. The Finance Ministry strongly opposes the bill, warning it would deplete limited public housing stock and shift public assets into private hands, undermining social housing’s purpose.

Advocates like Knesset member Michael Biton and Public Housing Forum chairman Danny Gigi argue that the government’s refusal to allocate funds for new housing undermines the law’s potential benefits. Yahav, uncertain if she can afford to buy her apartment even with a discount, remains determined to try and hopes the law will pass to give families like hers a chance at stability.