Baltesti village is located at less than 100 km from Bucharest. Here, “Habitat for Humanity” association together with the Soros Foundation Romania and the local administration decided to develop the project “A house for the future”. The project is meant to create a pattern for supporting the communities leaving in poor conditions in Romania and is targeting the Roma families.
Mona Prisacariu, program manager at the Soros Foundation Romania, considers that this subject is more and more ignored by the Romanian Government and that the housing law does not cover the needs of the most disadvantaged categories. “When we speak about poor housing especially in Roma communities, we don’t speak about building new houses. We all know that there are no property legal papers on houses”, says Prisacariu.
In Baltesti village, according to the mayor’s office, 482 “ursar” Roma are leaving and 912 Romanians and Vinatori is 100% inhabited by “calderash” Roma. “Vinatori in one of the poorest communities I ever saw. The Roma houses there were burned down. Now they leave in some hutches built of sticks and blankets”, says Prisacariu.
The project consists in building in these villages 25 new houses up to 2011 and to renovate other 23, and both activities will be developed by the beneficiary families with the support of the volunteers from “Habitat for Humanity”. This is one of the basic conditions for receiving a house.
The beneficiaries will receive also legal papers attesting that they are the owners of the houses and will pay monthly rates of 50 to 100 lei, for 20 years without interest or profit.
(DIVERS – www.divers.ro)