An overview of housing conditions in Romania & Housing situation of Roma population

1. Social Inclusion Program for Disadvantaged Categories Focused on Roma: Designing an inclusive program of social housing in Romania An overview of housing conditions in Romania & Housing situation of roma population

5. # Only 18,4% of roma households have a density average of inhabitants/ room under national average (1,18 inhabitants/ room); # Only 51,4% of roma households have less than 2 person/ room, in comparison with 92,7% at the level of whole Romanian population; # 25,6% of roma households have an average of persons/ room more than 3,01, as comparative with 1,7% at the level of whole Romanian population (including roma);

6. The main factors that explain housing density of roma population are related to # family low income/ person, as a consequence of # low school level and qualification, # marriage at a young age, # # living in homogenous community # most of them in rural, and # having many children.

8. As poor is a family (in terms of income but not necessarily wealth) as bad are the housing condition in terms of overcrowding.

11. These objective factors which describe the bad housing conditions of roma population as comparative with national level are confirmed by the subjective perception/ appreciation of own housing conditions For a global picture of housing quality and comfort of roma population is necessary to set up indexes of housing utilities and assets owned .

12. # The value of utilities index of roma population is two times smaller than at national level. This could be named as “housing poverty”, not a temporary one but a persistent one. # The roma people living in rural area are so poor, that 3/5 of them have nothing else than electricity and about 1/5 neither electricity. The index of housing utilities included: kitchen, bathroom, WC inside of house, gas network connection, connection to sewerage system, running water inside of house, electricity and heating system (table 19)

13. Composition of Index assets (7 commodities): refrigerator, cooking machine, freezer, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, TV set (black/ white and colour), telephone set. In terms of assets possession, the situation is going worse. One third of roma household don’t own any commodity, 9 times a higher percentage than at national level. This is another factor which underlines the deep & lasting poverty of roma households.