By contrast the primary expense of living in the 'East' is food and energy. For many people, housing is practically or exactly free.
The Serbian population is already down about a million people from its peak: https://www.populationpyramid.net/serbia/2019/
There is a lot of cheap real-estate out there outside cities.
What might make more sense is to have food kitchens and standardised subsidised housing for the poor and out of work. This kind of work could be done super-efficiently at a national level.
The other factor is that things like pension and welfare expenses are basically known expenses. It doesn't make sense to charge a % of consumption or income (thereby disincentivizing both of them). Just share the burden across everyone of working age with a poll tax, and to the rich with a property tax (with a credit for the number of children under age 16, to avoid penalizing families). You can find other externalities to tax like drugs, road use, and fossil fuels.
The USA, UK, Scandinavia, Australia have embraced these kind of transparent and simple taxes, and their societies are much wealthier because of them.