Housing – ERGO Network

Research report on Roma access to quality and affordable housing

ERGO Network launches its research report on Roma access to quality and affordable housing

The European Roma Grassroots Organisations (ERGO) Network held its annual Policy Conference on 28 November, entitled “Implementing the EU Roma Strategic Framework. Roma access to quality and affordable housing.” Many Roma still live in informal settlements and segregated neighbourhoods, in inadequate dwellings and disastrous living conditions, with severe environmental consequences. Unable to meet ever-rising housing costs or to prove legal ownership of their home, they endure forced evictions, homelessness, and antigypsyism from local authorities, landlords, and neighbours.

The EU Roma Strategic Framework for Equality, Inclusion, and Participation 2020 – 2030 includes as one of its four sectoral objectives “Increase effective equal access to adequate desegregated housing and essential services”, while the Council Recommendation on Roma Equality, Inclusion and Participation features a comprehensive section on “Access to adequate desegregated housing and essential services”, calling on Member States to “ensure equal treatment of Roma people in access to adequate desegregated housing and essential services.” Ensuring access to housing and adequate services and providing support to the homeless are also extensively covered by the European Pillar of Social Rights (Social Pillar), the compass for Europe’s recovery, while it is also supported by Goals 6, 7, 11, 13 and 15 of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

During 2023, ERGO Network conducted in-depth national case studies in six countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain), looking at the realities of Roma housing and living conditions, as well as at the key barriers the Roma face when trying to access quality and affordable housing in these countries. Additional benchmarking evidence was provided by our members in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ireland, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Türkiye. The main findings and recommendations were brought together in an EU synthesis report, launched in the framework of the above-mentioned event.

Key messages of the report:

Roma living conditions are significantly worse than those of the majority, while most Roma experience de facto homelessness.

Urgent and significant investment is needed to improve the structural condition of the dwellings that most Roma inhabit, including their connection to utilities, in order to render them compliant with the United Nations definition of adequate housing.

Most Roma live in segregated communities and / or informal settlements, many exposed to environmental hazards.

Countries need to develop comprehensive desegregation plans with clear targets and indicators, which should also tackle the legalisation of irregular housing situations and the environmental consequences stemming from the use of unsuitable locations.

High costs of housing and overcomplex administrative procedures further reduce Roma access to housing.

Roma housing and energy poverty must be addressed through improving access to income and better regulation of the housing and utilities market; bureaucratic procedures should be simplified, including decoupling access to services from ID papers and a fixed address.

The Roma continue to face antigypsyism and forced evictions.

Anti-bias training must be compulsory for all housing actors, including local authorities, coupled with strong anti-discrimination legislation and mechanisms; evictions should be a last resort and must entail due notice and the provision of decent alternative housing.

Social housing holds great potential for Roma housing, but is currently under-utilised.

The social housing stock needs to be expanded and improved, while its allocation should follow a rights-based, housing-first approach, reducing conditionality and unaffordability and ensuring that vulnerable groups such as the Roma are prioritised.

Roma communities and their civil society organisations must be involved, in order to co-create sustainable ways forward.

Policymakers and all housing actors must cooperate closely with Roma stakeholders and their civil society representatives to ensure evidence-based solutions, support disaggregated data collection, foster common understanding, and bridge cultural gaps.

With this research, we aim to kick-start a debate with policymakers on improving the availability, accessibility, affordability, quality, and inclusiveness of housing for Europe’s Roma.

Read the EU synthesis report here!
Read the national case studies: Bulgaria – Czech Republic – Hungary – Romania – Slovakia – Spain.
Read the additional benchmarking evidence: Albania – Bosnia and Herzegovina – Ireland (here and here) – Kosovo – North Macedonia – Turkiye.

For more information about ERGO Network’s work on Roma access to quality and affordable housing, please contact Senior Policy Adviser Amana Ferro.

News from the Centre de Mediations des Gens de Voyage et des Roms

Centre de Médiation des Gens du Voyage et des Roms, Belgium:

Since 2001, the CMGVR has been active with both the Roma and the Traveller communities, providing daily social and administrative help, as well as support for their professional integration. As a mediation body, it makes the relation with authorities, institutions and services easier and more effective for Roma families. The CMGVR proposes frequent supervisions for local authorities, and trainings for Roma mediators and social, educative, administrative and health workers. Our NGO also tries to support the effective participation of Roma and Travellers at the discussion tables on national, regional and local levels and ensures that Roma and Travellers’ claims reach the political level.

New local projects of integration through housing

For a number of years, the CMGVR has drawn attention to an alarming observation: the number of Roma families in situation of homelessness is increasing, not only in Brussels but also in other Belgian cities. To this day, there is hardly any humanitarian (and even emergency) answer to the worrisome situation of these families and children. Recently, the difficulties they face have even worsened with the introduction of the “anti-squat law”.

Beyond to the lack of infrastructure and regulation, an additional difficulty lies in the family dimension of homelessness faced by Roma, as most of the existing initiatives meant to tackle homelessness or develop housing insertion are conceived for individuals, not for families. This observation holds for the most basic housing support like emergency night shelters, the great majority of which are not accessible to children. Beyond short term emergency sheltering, Roma people face numerous obstacles on the rental market and in accessing social housing.

In the face of this significant lack of perspectives for families living in precarious housing conditions, the CMGVR has decided to innovate and launch local projects of insertion through housing. At this time, two families have been provided with temporary housing (6 months to a year). These projects are developed in partnerships with local authorities and with the social housing public and private agencies. They are inspired by the method of “Housing First”[1] and have the ambition of bringing marginalized families back into regular social and administrative rights. The CMGVRW thus follows up on the accompaniment of these families with social, educational, administrative and health support.

This experience has shown that housing insertion comes with an increased ability for families to cope and stabilize other areas of life, which they could not address while living in the streets. The numerous positive outcomes of these local projects illustrate that while there are no ready-made solutions, some successful operational practices do exist and should be developed on a wider scale.

Working in the context of a sanitary crisis

In 2020, the CMGVR has had to adjust its projects and services to the global pandemic of COVID-19, particularly during the lockdown period.

From the very beginning of the healthcare crisis, the CMGVR became aware that communicating about COVID-19 would be a major challenge, particularly for the most “vulnerable” groups, for whom language barriers or situations of socio-economic poverty might hinder access to information or health care. All through the confinement period, the CMGVR team thus made sure to maintain optimal communication and follow-up with Roma and Traveller families. As early as March 2020, the CMGVR launched a wide information campaign about the COVID-19 crisis and the sanitary measures recommended by the government. As the government decisions and confinement phases evolved, the information was regularly updated and made available on social networks, as well as through mails and texts translated into several Eastern European languages (including romanes). The objective was to respond to the many fears and questions raised by the pandemic, and to ensure that the sanitary measures were understood and applied by all.

The CMGVR also sought to support health care professionals by offering translation services to hospitals, medical houses and general practitioners in order to facilitate communication with Roma individuals and families. Similar services of translation and mediation were also offered to schoolteachers and other educational actors as schools reopened, both in June and in September 2020.

Now that the lockdown period is over, the CMGVR has resumed its on-site projects and accompaniment, notably its mobile school support project, which provides complementary learning support to Traveller families and children with a focus on reading, writing and calculation. The CMGVR also offers school support to Roma children who face language or learning difficulties.

[1] “Housing First” is the name of a method meant to tackle homelessness, based on the idea that any effective inclusion process starts with a decent place to live. In this logic, providing homeless people with an individual and permanent housing is a prerequisite for durable inclusion.

Activities of FAGIC

National Training – Roma Youth Voice

FAGIC has been chosen to implement on national level in Spain the activities of the European project “Roma Youth Voices” led by Phiren Amenca and TernYpe. In the framework of the project we organized a National Training course about social and political participation for Roma youngsters from all Spain in February 2020. The aim of the project is to empower young people to ensure a more effective participation of young Roma in the political life. Roma youth is the future and they need to be aware of it!

You can follow the development of the project here: https://www.facebook.com/RomaYouthVoices/

R-HOME: Focus groups

FAGIC is currently developing a project about housing called R-HOME (Roma, Housing, Opportunities, Mobility and Empowerment). The project aims to analyze the situation of housing for Roma people in 5 different countries (Italy, France, Spain, Romania and Hungary). To do so we are taking part in a transnational investigation on housing .You can find more information on the project here: https://rhome.caritasambrosiana.it/

In the framework of the research activities we have led two focus groups with experts, representatives of the local Roma community and other organizations working on housing for people in marginal situations.

12th European Platform for Roma Inclusion Health and housing inequalities

12th European Platform for Roma Inclusion Health and housing inequalities

From 8-9 October 2018 the 12th European Platform for Roma inclusion took place in Brussels with a special focus on health and housing inequalities faced by Roma people. The annual platform is organised by the Roma coordination unit of the European Commission Directorate General for Justice and Consumers, in consultation with Roma and pro-Roma civil society. It brings together civil society, experts, national governments, European institutions and Roma people from local level who are experts in the field of health and housing.

Health and housing are two out of the four key priorities of the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies.

The event started on 8 October with the opening panel, followed by a theatre performance given by Ara Art “And Again we slept Pindral”. The play took the audience through the history of Roma culture and music through storytelling.

On the second day two political panels and two workshops on housing inequalities and health focused on identifying challenges that are drivers of social exclusion. ERGO Network’s Director Jamen Gabriela Hrabanova facilitated the workshop on social housing and ERGO’s policy and research coordinator Jelena Jovanovic was the rapporteur that brought the key messages from the workshop to the political panel.

In the political panel Vera Jourova, Commissioner for Fundamental Justice, stated: “I want to evaluate in depth the EU Framework for National Integration Strategies and to focus on smart EU funding for the next programming period”. Equal treatment of Roma and mainstreaming of Roma inclusion are the key priorities of the European Agenda and post 2020 programs.

The general messages that were pointed out by the participants:

Health

- The EU and Member States should use human rights approaches when developing health policies, and Roma health policies in particular.
- European Commission should consider earmarking funding for EU-wide advocacy coalitions and strategic/impact litigation that aims at identifying structural deficiencies and discrimination potential of member states’ legislation, when it comes to Roma.

Developing and reinforcing measures effectively targeting antigypsyism and discrimination against Roma.

Housing

Poor data: Mapping of the situation of Roma in housing; demolitions are often ongoing and nobody knows how many people are affected by the situation.
Antigypsyism: should be tackled with mainstream and targeted approaches with reinforced measures.
Harmful initiatives/bad investments: political will has to be increased and the knowledge of the responsible actors improved.
Lack of awareness of ‘mainstream’ measures: Relevant EU policies have not been yet mainstreamed at the national level. One of the needs identified during the workshop is raising awareness and implementation at national level of the European Pillar of Social Rights and specifically of Principle 19 (that includes three relevant issues – social housing, forced evictions and homelessness)

The participants repeated their call from the Platform 2017 for the importance of empowerment and involvement of Roma in decision-making by ensuring Roma participation in every phase of the policy cycle (design, implementation, coordination, monitoring and evaluation, review), including at local level.

Evictions of Roma Travelers in Brussels

Evictions of Roma Travelers in Brussels: Is Antigypsyism the last accepted form of racism?

On 28 June 2018, evictions of Roma Travelers are to take place in Anderlecht, Brussels. The group of Roma who are going to be evicted are Belgian Roma for centuries. They were born here, as well as their parents and their grandparents. Roma Travelers have always been living on the territory of the Municipality of Anderlecht – part of the European capital Brussels.

Nevertheless, Belgian Roma Travelers remain one of the most neglected communities in Europe. During the Second World War, a big part of the Belgian Roma Community who is traditionally travelling and living in caravans were deported to the Nazi concentration camps. Today, a generation later, Belgian Roma Travelers are being constantly evicted from site to site, unwanted and unwelcomed by the local authorities.

Only two weeks ago, the Anderlecht Municipality announced to the Belgian Roma living on Dante Street that they needed to leave the site. The motive: the land where the camp is located is polluted.

Apparently, this is not the first attempt of the Mayor of Anderlecht Eric Tomas from the Socialist Party to get rid of the Belgian Roma Travelers site. Many times the police have come to the site and ordered them to move without any official order or notice. In April 2018, the local police went to the Belgian Roma Travelers site on Dante Street and ordered them to move, again without any document. However, this time the Roma refused to follow orders without the needed legal attributes.

The owner of the land where the Roma camp is located is not the municipality of Anderlecht. The land of the camp is the private property of the Boghossian Foundation – an Armenian philanthropist family. So far, the Boghossian Foundation refused to cooperate with local authorities and police and to support the eviction of the Roma from their private land. Despite this, the municipality have found an excuse to still conduct the evictions – the pretext is that the land is polluted. This is happening in the context of the coming local elections that will take place in October.

The questions are many. Is Antigypsyism acceptable in the very heart of the European Union and its values? Is the Socialist Party ready to take responsibility for such an act and do they propose any alternative for the Belgian Roma who actually are Belgian citizens? What is the moral right of an Armenian foundation to evict another minority that went through the very same persecution and genocide? Is Antigypsyism the last acceptable form of racism?

There has been the possibility for several years now to create a Travelers site with allocated land and facilities. There is even a special fund from the Brussels Region that can be used for this. However, no municipality so far showed an interest and took advantage of this funding (except Haren).

Three days before the evictions part of the camp was set on fire. Тhe perpetrators remain unknown. The evictions will still take place as planned on 28 June 2018. Where will the Belgian Roma go? Will their children attend school? Will they be provided an alternative? The answer is No. Until the next evictions.

Written by Atanas Stoyanov