A number of social organizations, among the, Community Advocacy, Hamaabarah, Rabbis for Human Rights, Halev V’hamishpat,  and The Forum for Public Housing in Israel,  sent letters to State Auditor Yosef Shapira regarding the breakup of the public housing company Prazot. The wave of letters warns against a significant leak of public housing funds that may result from the dismantling agreement regarding the Jerusalem firm, signed on 27 November.

The Prazot accounts accrued about NIS 130 million, partly as a result of public housing sales. Those funds were supposed to be directed toward improvement of public housing and/or increasing the supply of public housing units in Jerusalem. The agreement to dismantle the firm reveals that only NIS 55 million of those funds will be earmarked for public housing, while the lion’s share, about NIS 75 million, will be taken for other purposes. As worthy as those other purposes may be, says Rabbis for Human Rights, those purposes are unrelated to the public housing budget. Fighting for worthy social causes and increasing budgets for that purposes is only proper, but not through the reallocation of funds already dedicated to an especially disempowered population – public housing residents.