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The recent cold weather, fortunately, did not lead to serious and numerous accidents, although there were some. In Tomilino, for example, due to frost, heating and electricity were turned off for a long time. In some other cities, various kinds of problems also occurred that created difficulties and inconvenience for residents.

Why is this happening? Russian citizens pay their rent and utilities quite carefully; the number of debtors does not exceed 10% of the total number of residents. These are tolerable indicators. People pay and are sure that they should be served normally, without turning anything off. However, in reality, they pay only a part of what is the cost of maintaining housing and housing and communal services. Although this part is growing all the time. Let me clarify: we are talking about urban housing stock, apartment buildings. The situation with private houses in rural areas is different; their owners know that they must bear all the costs themselves. But in Russia the urban population predominates, and therefore apartment buildings, mainly built during the years of Soviet power.

Many members of the government insist that by 2008 the population pays 100% for housing and communal services. Now this share is 65-70%; most of the population cannot pay the full amount due to low incomes. State employees, some pensioners, large families - for them there is a provision that if the costs of housing maintenance and housing and communal services exceed approximately 22% of the family budget (the figure varies from region to region), then such families have the right to housing subsidies . Today, access to subsidies is difficult, and many families do not receive them.

According to estimates, up to a quarter of families in Russia should receive housing subsidies, which would account for up to one fifth of the family budget. This is not a normal situation. If people received these subsidies, for many it would become a way to undermine work motivation. The family should earn money, and not receive it from the state. The situation indicates that not all is well in the existing system. After all, as long as the costs of housing and utilities, including the necessary investments, are not fully reimbursed, and households are not able to bear these costs, the housing and communal services sector cannot develop normally. Simply because it does not receive a significant portion of resources. The lack of funds results in all the accidents that we encounter. Meanwhile, in Moscow, energy consumption is growing at a high rate, not so much in the manufacturing sector, but in the household and service sectors. Energy consumption is much higher than it was before, and this is making the situation worse.

What citizens do not pay extra, plus wear and tear, is paid extra by the state in the form of subsidies. Subsidies for the maintenance of housing stock account for more than 50 percent of all subsidies and benefits that the population receives from the state. This whole benefit battle that was over monetization in early 2005 was, surprisingly, about a small portion of the benefits. In total, all these benefits, which are so dear to many citizens, amount to approximately 7% of the total volume of benefits and subsidies. And support for housing and communal services in the form of subsidies and subsidies, as noted, is more than 50%. Plus, you also need to take into account the reduced tariffs for gas, electricity, cross-subsidization through inflated tariffs for enterprises.

Unfortunately, until now, the entire housing and communal services sector is a rudiment of the Soviet economy - everything has remained as it was. At the very beginning of the reforms, a very important action was carried out - the privatization of housing, most of the apartments were transferred into the ownership of their residents. But the responsibility of the owners for the maintenance of housing and other services, major repairs, for example, was not transferred. Garbage collection, maintenance of elevators, full payment for gas, heat, water supply - all this remained on the shoulders of the state. From my point of view, a serious mistake was made. The complete object of housing existence is a house, not an apartment, but the houses remain under the supervision of local authorities. This is the local administration, DEZs, which have existed since time immemorial, although they were previously called differently. Privatization was very important socially, it helped to reconcile people with reforms, but it created a certain trap. After all, people have to pay for everything - and pay at normal prices, but this just doesn’t work. Since the housing and communal services reform began, there has been an attempt, in accordance with the law, to create condominiums - homeowners' associations that would cover all costs and represent consumers of services on the market. But now only 5,000 condominiums have been created throughout the country. To force people to enter them, to pay money, to elect leaders, to control them so that they represent the interests of residents, and do not take advantage of their position and appropriate funds from residents - this problem cannot yet be solved. Civic activity, even in one's own interests, remains at the level of the plinth.

Housing and communal services are a very profitable area for business, and business will go into this area. But this is not happening yet, since there are fixed prices regulated by federal and local authorities. If there was such an opportunity, the business itself would contribute to the creation of condominiums in order to deal with them on the market - it needs a partner. Entrepreneurs cannot deal with every individual resident, every family. And no one wants to deal with the existing housing and communal services departments - there are still the same officials, kickbacks and other delights of the non-market sector.

Another problem that the population constantly complains about is the rapid increase in prices and tariffs. This is explained, on the one hand, by the fact that in the non-market sector, which is housing and communal services, prices and tariffs will always grow faster than in market conditions - this is the nature of a monopoly. On the other hand, we must remember that for a long time government regulation consisted of freezing prices and tariffs for heat, gas, and electricity. Especially in the part that concerned the provision of services to the population. Therefore, over the years of reforms there has been a backlog, which is now gradually catching up.

Almost all employees of the public sector, a significant proportion of pensioners, are people with fixed incomes who do not keep up with inflation, and if there are free prices, this problem will become even more serious in social terms. What is a possible solution? By maintaining low prices, the state says: we cannot liberalize them, we have many poor people. But in fact, these poor people do not receive enough wages and pensions to pay for utilities normally. One of the main problems is very low salaries in the public sector and very low pensions. The solution is to increase the salaries of public sector employees and pensions to the level when they will be enough for a normal existence, a normal level of reproduction of the labor force. And accordingly, subsidies in housing and communal services will be reduced in parallel.

Now there is a fairly significant increase in wages in the public sector. This year they will add 15% from May 1 and 11% in the fall, but no one is telling citizens that this is an interconnected operation, that prices in housing and communal services will be gradually liberalized, and that everyone will have to pay these prices from their higher incomes . In the end, this is simply a transition to a market economy in yet another sector that has remained the same. What we failed to complete in 1992. And until there are normal market relations in the housing and communal services sector, even with the burdens that are characteristic of many types of activities in the social sphere, problems with accidents, interruptions in the supply of heat and gas will continue. We need to organize a breakthrough, which is what true reforms are. But it seems that the current government is unable to do this.