Displaced families in Georgia’s west receive apartments from gov’t

Over 100 families in western Georgia’s Adjara region will soon reside in renovated apartments they received within the governmental program of social support for the country’s internally displaced persons earlier today.

In a formal occasion held in Black Sea resort town of Chakvi, the families were granted legal ownership and residence to apartments they occupied since fleeing conflicts in Georgia’s occupied breakaway regions.

The governmental gift involves 122 households , including 96 of internally displaced persons.

Many of the families spent over two decades occupying apartments without legal ownership. Photo: Georgia’s Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons press office.

The beneficiaries received the rights for legal residence in an apartment block selected or the purpose, for the symbolic price of 1 GEL. The building is currently in disrepair but will be renovated with support from the local self-government.

Relevant agencies of the Kobuleti Municipality will replace the roof of the apartment block for the families. In addition, the local government will also carry out works for redeveloping and improving the yard of the building.

The renovation of the Chakvi apartment site will go ahead "as soon as the families have ownership documents”, Minister of Internally Displaced Persons Sozar Subari told reporters at today’s occasion.

The government has built and renovated apartment blocks for displaced households. Photo: Georgia’s Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons press office.

The families receiving the apartments told local media they had resided in various holiday homes in Adjara resort towns since escaping the conflicts in Georgia in the early 1990s.

Evicted in 2006 from the homes, the displaced families lived in various apartment sites for the last decade without ownership rights.

The Georgian government has granted apartments to hundreds of internally displaced families from the occupied regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) over the last two years.

The beneficiary households have been granted apartments in renovated blocks as well as brand-new construction projects built for the purpose.