The voice of citizens without shelter

“Working together for a green, competitive and inclusive Europe”

“Rather than stay there, I preferred to leave at 1 AM and sleep on the streets” (February 2020) –  person without shelter describing the conditions in one of the shelters in Bucharest. He talks about mange, bedbugs and the lack of access to toilets and showers. He has no legal paperwork, works during the day on a construction site but the money that he earns are not enough in order to afford a rent.

This is one of the persons without shelter who sleeps on the streets. Like many other – elderly, sick, suffering of addictions and mental problems. Nobody knows how many are there. What do we know is that during winter, very few shelters are at full capacity. We also know that until May 2019 in Bucharest we had 14178 files submitted for social housing, the municipality having vacant only 13 homes.

Together with Carusel Association we started a new project – “The voice of citizens without shelter” – through which we aim to create a better representation of the interests and needs of people living on the streets in the public space and on the agenda of the responsible public institutions. This people suffer from a multitude of problems: the lack of shelter, physical insecurity, the lack of legal paperwork, health problems, precarious education and the lack of access to the labour market. All these problems are perpetuated by the lack of social housing policy in Bucharest and the poor quality of social services for people without shelter.

Combining the experience of Carusel (social services) with that of CeRe (community organization and advocacy), we aim for the direct involvement of 40 persons without shelter in a long-term process of community organization, which will involve activities that will improve self-esteem and advocacy skills which will lead to concrete measures to solve problems identified by those involved in this project;

Project implemented by:

“The project  is implemented by CeRe: Resources Center for Public Participation in partnership with Carusel Assocaiton and benefits from a  203.101 euros, grant from Active Citizens Fund Romania, programme funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants Grants 2014 -2021. The content of this website does not necessarily reflect the official position of the EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021; for more information access www.eeagrants.org. Available information about the Active Citizens Funds Romania can be found at  www.activecitizensfund.ro.”