Housing tenure limit sparks crisis at Turkish railway company

A new housing directive from Turkey's state-owned railway company, TÜRASAŞ, is causing controversy by limiting occupancy in company-provided apartments to five years. The policy, intended to allow more personnel to utilize the limited housing stock, has ignited discussions about the allocation of vacated units.

Utku Çakırözer, a Member of Parliament for the NEW Party in Eskişehir, has raised concerns about the directive. He highlighted that staff currently benefiting from "duty-assigned housing" are being asked to vacate their residences. Çakırözer submitted a parliamentary question to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, seeking clarification on several points.

He requested information on the total number of company-owned residences across different provinces, the number of employees affected by the eviction policy, and the justification for providing duty-assigned housing to personnel serving on an interim basis, a practice not explicitly covered by the Public Housing Regulation. Çakırözer also questioned the legal foundation for assigning these residences based on departmental units and team leadership rather than the established criteria of position and title.

In response, Minister Uraloğlu stated that TÜRASAŞ's Eskişehir Regional Directorate manages 146 housing units for 1,441 personnel, the Sakarya Regional Directorate has 152 units for 1,082 staff, and the Sivas Regional Directorate possesses 163 units for 1,088 employees. He explained that the five-year tenure limit, stipulated in the directive, aims to maximize the number of employees who can benefit from housing and ensure a fair allocation process.

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The tenure limit, also included in the relevant directive, aims to ensure that an optimum number of personnel benefit from housing and that a fair allocation process is operated.