Lehliu sat REPORT by euroma european roma mapping

Lehliu sat REPORT Romania, Calarasi county 11.2007-07.2009

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Report on Lehliu-sat Roma Settlement. Aspects of the Housing Situation Synthesis by Ioana Florea & Catalin Berescu

Table of content: Report on Lehliu-sat Roma Settlement........................................................................... 1 Aspects of the Housing Situation ..................................................................................... 2 1. Localization and spatial mobility ................................................................................ 4 1.1. The locality .......................................................................................................... 4 1.2. The Roma neighborhood/settlement .................................................................... 4 1.3. Means of transportation ....................................................................................... 5 2. History of the settlement .............................................................................................. 6 2.1. First dwellers........................................................................................................ 6 2.2. Communist period................................................................................................ 7 2.3. Transition period.................................................................................................. 7 3. Legal status .................................................................................................................... 8 3.1. The land ............................................................................................................... 9 3.2 The houses ............................................................................................................ 9 4. Infrastructure.............................................................................................................. 10 4.1. Water.................................................................................................................. 10 4.2. Electricity........................................................................................................... 10 4.3. Sewer system ..................................................................................................... 11 4.4. Garbage disposal................................................................................................ 11 4.5. Heating/cooking installations............................................................................. 12 4.6. Communication facilities ................................................................................... 12 5. The household surroundings...................................................................................... 13 5.1. House position ................................................................................................... 13 5.2. Yards .................................................................................................................. 13 5.3. Playgrounds........................................................................................................ 14 6. Building materials....................................................................................................... 15 6.1. Roofs .................................................................................................................. 15 6.2. Walls .................................................................................................................. 16 6.3. Doors and windows............................................................................................ 17 6.4. Floors ................................................................................................................. 18 7. Interiors ....................................................................................................................... 18 7.1. Density ............................................................................................................... 18 7.2. Organization of space ........................................................................................ 19 7.3. Furniture............................................................................................................. 19 7.4. Decoration.......................................................................................................... 19 8. Indicators of poverty................................................................................................... 20 8.1. Severe poverty ................................................................................................... 20 8.2. Extreme poverty................................................................................................. 20 2

9. The complexity of the situation.................................................................................. 20 9.1. Lack of job opportunities ................................................................................... 20 9.2. Precarious sources of income............................................................................. 21 9.3. Alphabetization and education........................................................................... 22 9.4. Health conditions ............................................................................................... 22 9.5. Mediation structures and civil society support .................................................. 23 9.6. Informal leadership ............................................................................................ 23 9.7. Level of participation......................................................................................... 23 9.8. The church ......................................................................................................... 24 9.9. The local authorities........................................................................................... 24 9.10. Discrimination.................................................................................................. 25 9.11. Vicious circle of extreme poverty.....................Error! Bookmark not defined.

1. Localization and spatial mobility 1.1. The locality Lehliu-sat is the main village of the Lehliu locality (which includes another smaller village called Sapunari) – this means that the local authorities have the office in the village. The locality is set in the Baragan plain, 70 km way from Bucharest and Calarasi –the closest cities (municipii) – and 7 km away from the closest town (oras) – Lehliu-Gara, which is crossed by the railway from Bucharest to Constanta. The village itself is crossed by the national road DN3 from Bucharest to Calarasi – an essential element of spatial mobility. According to the Census 2002, the entire locality had 2817 registered inhabitants; according to the local authorities’ estimations in 2005, the locality had 2889 inhabitants, out of which 1889 lived in Lehliu-sat, out of which 243 Roma ethnics. In a recent inquiry, in February 2007, the local authorities estimated 343 Roma in the locality (from the total of 2985), living mostly in 2 compact communities – 54 households with 243 persons in Lehliu-sat and 27 households with 100 persons in Sapunari village. Due to the fact that most of the Roma declare themselves as Romanians in the Census and their mother tongue is Romanian, these numbers are estimators, obtained through hetero-identification. The main demographic characteristic of the over-all locality, in the last decades, is the ageing population – phenomenon which doesn’t define the Roma population. Theoretically, the main resource in the region is the agricultural land, but, because of the last decades of this ageing phenomenon and other economic constrains, the land cannot be efficiently exploited, but used mainly for subsistence agriculture.

1.2. The Roma neighborhood/settlement As just mentioned, in Lehliu there are 54 Roma households, comprising about 250 persons, more than half being under 18. Most of the Roma houses are at the edge of the agricultural fields, sometimes marked by trees. Most of the houses/ settlements are fenced, even if some fences are improvised from old

metal wires or old wood boards. Only the poorest households don’t have a marking of the dwelling area1. They are concentrated on few mud streets, only recently covered with stone pavement, at the edge of the village. But the distance from the last house to the city center is not more than 1.5 km. Thus, now that the communal roads are in better conditions, children don’t need more than 30 minutes to go to school. Still, the segregation of the Roma settlement is clear. It is not only an ethnic segregation but also an economic segregation – as the Roma houses are the poorest in the village. In the area inhabited by Roma, there are only few mixed Roma-Romanian households, in between the Roma houses, but these are also poor households. The area of Romanian households is separated by communal streets from the Roma ones, even if the actual pieces of inhabited land are not far from each other. In addition, the closer the Romanian houses are to the Roma ones, the poorer they are. This could lead to the idea that, although clear, the segregation is mostly symbolic and the ethnic segregation is continued by an economic segregation. As it usually happens in most cases of housing segregation, the segregated settlement receives a negative stereotype (and even stigmatization) from the rest of the population. The stigmatization of the Roma in Lehliu has the following content: they have no sense of duty or property; they are the ones who actually want to be at the edge of the village, because they have their own culture and don’t want to be “civilized”; they are poor because they are lazy; no one sent them at the edge of the village, they like how they live there. Indeed, referring to the last sentence, as most of the subjects stated, the situation of the Roma in Lehliu is not as bad as in other communities. The school mediator and the facilitator agreed that the situation has improved in comparison to the past years – most of the people had the chance, this summer, to repair the houses a little bit and even the improvisations will offer some shelter during the winter. But, according to our observations, it is far from being at the generally accepted level of welfare. The previous researcher found out that the common name given by non-Roma to the Roma settlement is “the happy neighborhood” or Dallas – according to the stereotype that the Roma party all the time, because they have nothing to hope for, thus noting to loose.

Despite the declaration of the town hall secretary, who considers the Roma as being ignorant to issues of property and household identity – probably still under the influence of the common stereotype that the Roma are nomads in their “blood”.

1.3. Means of transportation There are buses that link Lehliu-sat with Bucharest and Calarasi. The buses are either very old, with windows repaired with paper-glue-band, either new but with no facilities (no heating for winter, no air conditioning for hot summers). In August 2007, the price for one way Bucharest-Lehliu / CalarasiLehliu was 7.5 ron (2.1 euros); in December 2007, it already grew to 10 ron (3 euros). There are some micro-buses as well, for this distance, but not in the early morning or late evening (the most “needed” hours). Towards Lehliu-Gara, there are few busses a day; one way costs 2 ron (after a period in which the company wanted to raise it to 2.5, when the people refused to pay this amount). All these are operated by private companies. From Lehliu-Gara, the trains to Bucharest or Constanta pass few times a day, but the cheap ones take longer time to reach the cities, than the buses/ cars do. Most of the people choose to go to Lehliu-Gara by bike, even in winter, and hitchhiking is a popular practice (despite its risks and disadvantages) – for some, these are the only affordable means of transportation. As the work opportunities in the village and in the immediate surroundings are very scarce, people are forced to seek work outside the locality. Thus, transportation is a key need, which for many is too expensive and unaffordable. Many people from the Roma community (the poorest community in the village), complained about the difficulties related to the transportation costs. The higher wages they could receive in Bucharest, are considerably reduced because of these costs, costs which, after all, render hard working just a little more profitable than passively living out of the social benefit. There is another important issue related to transportation: the recent national interdiction for carts to use the national roads – such as DN3. Considering the fact that Lehliu-sat is build along DN3, this interdiction practically means the blockage of local transportation, which further implies the difficulty of doing small agricultural works, of transporting goods from neighbor settlements, of transporting construction materials for improving the housing conditions. In general terms, it blocks the autonomy of the dwellers, giving an advantage only to the car owners (who implicitly are better off individuals).

2. History of the settlement Exploring the housing situation and the level of social exclusion in many Roma settlements, it became clear for the social researchers that the historical conditions – the first dwellers, the reasons for settling in a particular place, the rights and obligations of the first dwellers, the main historical events and changes – generally have a great influence on the development of the settlement.

2.1. First dwellers It is possible that few Roma families settled in the region about 140 years ago, but there is no formal evidence of their presence. They probably were working for the rich land owners in the region, performing agricultural works. According to the sayings, some Roma families received the right to inhabit and use a piece of land, given from the land of the rich landlords who employed them. But these sayings are not covered by any formal papers. Most of the present Roma dwellers state they are the 4th or even 5th generation who inhabits the respective piece of land. This continuity is the main argument for the ownership rights over the land – especially for the families who don’t possess a formalized ownership document (yet).

2.2. Communist period The town hall secretary stated (off the record) that few Roma families lived for sure in the village, around the time of the Second World War. According to some Roma respondents, the Roma who came in Lehliu around the ‘50s are the forth-parents of the present generations. After the collectivization, the Roma, as most of the rural dwellers in Romania, were working for the state owned (nationalized) farms and for the surrounding factories. Those Roma who worked continuously here, obtained the possibility to legalize the ownership papers and the authorization for house construction – which facilitated the possibility to install electricity. The others, who were seasonally commuting for work in other localities or who settles later on, in late ‘80s, were not granted the legalization right. The history of the housing segregation became clear in those times, in Lehliu: as in most of the localities in Romania, the Roma managed to build houses only at the edge of the settlement2. Their housing positioning corresponded to their employment positioning and status positioning: marginalization was the common characteristic. It is already generally known that, even if they were employed, the Roma were given mostly hard, unqualified jobs, without any courses of qualification or skills development, with lower wages. In which concerns the housing aspect, the peripheral positioning has at least 3 main reasons: 1. the Roma were considered not worthy for the village center – where the Romanians lived; 2. they were not wealthy enough to buy and build houses on the central streets, where more influential and better off families lived; 3. and they were new-comers, thus they had to settle on the free lands – the marginal ones through excellence.

2.3. Transition period According to some Roma informants, most of the Roma came in Lehliu after the Revolution. Most of them came from surrounding localities, as the village had the advantage to be set along the national road and still be affordable. They came either to form couples with partners already present in the village (the process of exogamic marriages), either to reunite with distant relatives living here, or came as strangers, new-comers, who decided to make a living here and bought land on hand-receipts. The first years of transition brought the shock of the unemployment – the survival agriculture, who could feed even the poor, disappeared, together with the free buses who used to take workers to the factories. In those years, most of the households chose3 their surviving strategies, which have outcomes in the current realities. At a locative level, transition meant, for the many Roma, remaining outside the legal property system (for example, through selling and buying houses on informal hand receipts; or though not receiving property as compensation for CAP work and also by “squatting” the land just near their relatives’ properties). It also meant deepening the polarization between the living conditions of the poor (mostly Roma) and the better off (mostly non-Roma). This situation is as valid in Lehliu, as in any other parts of the country. I was surprised to find that most of the Roma in Lehliu remember the communist times as being worst than now and the poverty even stronger back then. These are unusual statements for rural communities, as most of the people living in rural areas (Roma and non-Roma) remember the times when they had a fixed job as a better period. But the lucidity of the people here was impressive for us. Maybe because some of them worked on the harsh construction sites of the ambitious communist plans; maybe because the Revolution caught some of them in Bucharest, maybe because they were influenced by one of the informal community leaders (who used to be a dissident).

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Or, in the case of some cities, in the abandoned areas closer to the city center. But this is a general aspect. Not in the sense of a free choice, but a strongly conditioned one.

3. Legal status The fact that an entire PHARE grant scheme was launched this year in order to solve the legal situation of different Roma settlements and that this issue is a priority for the Governmental Strategy to improve the Roma condition, shows the gravity, on one hand, and the importance, on the other hand, of the legal status of the Roma households. As a recent Local Governments Survey4 shows, most of the Roma households in the rural localities don’t have legal ownership papers for their land and most of the Roma households in urban localities don’t have formal dwelling papers (rent or property or hosting) for their flats. The importance of this aspect, from the housing situation perspective, is given by the following: 1. lack of formal property/dwelling papers means vulnerability to evacuation or involuntary relocation – and, in the end, homelessness 2. it also means addiction to the “tolerant” attitude of the local authorities or some private land owners 3. it directly implies the illegal status of the built house – thus vulnerable to demolition and lacking any kind of disaster insurance 4. it is usually linked to the difficulty of receiving an identity document; people in these situation either have IDs on a different address or have temporary IDs5, which must be renewed at least once a year (implying quite some paperwork). The ID problem leads to further complications6. But, usually, the local authorities improvise, such as all the citizens can receive an ID, even if a temporary one 5. concerning again the housing situation, the lack of property papers restricts the possibility to contract infrastructure dealers: electricity, running water, gas, sewer, cable facilities. One could object that anyway most of the people would have enough money to contract the infrastructure dealers or even to pay them monthly – but this is not always the case, especially in urban areas. And, on the other hand, legalization combined with infrastructure improvements can be a real activator and empowerment for the people. Thus, for any household living in deep poverty (weather severe or extreme, weather Roma or nonRoma), obtaining the legal status is a first condition for surpassing the precarious housing situation.

Performed in the PHARE 2004.01.01/ A temporary ID has the same value as a usual one. The only difference is the impossibility to travel abroad. 6 Mainly, in regard to employment procedures, social benefit requests, medical care, school registration. 5

3.1. The land In Lehliu, the usual situation is as follows: the Roma families are settled on their old family land – the land of the first Roma who came in the locality. But only the families who worked for the former CAP during the communist time had the possibility to register their ownership papers and to formally become owners. Anyway, there is a variety of cases among the Roma households in Lehliu: 1. families who got their property rights during communism, made the procedures of legal succession towards the successors and the situation is completely legal. There is quite a number of such cases in Lehliu Roma community; 2. families who got their property rights during communism, but didn’t go on with the succession papers. There are more cases of this type; 3. the families who were granted the legal property sold the land; in most of the cases, the land was sold on hand receipts, which are not entirely legal. In Lehliu Roma community there are more cases of this type; 4. the dwellers didn’t perform continuous work for the CAPs and thus weren’t granted the right to legally register their ownership during communism times and are now still relaying on the fact that nobody else can reclaim their land and that the local authorities will continue to accept this situation; only few legalized their ownership papers after 1990 – because it needs a lot of paperwork, travels to the court and money; 5. there is no case in which the Roma squatted a private owned land 6. there are some uncertain cases, because we actually couldn’t see everybody’s ownership papers. According to the local authorities’ estimations, there are 15 households with absolutely no property authentication. In fact, there is a law, promulgated in the frame of the Governmental Strategy to improve the Roma situation, stating that the Roma should be granted land from the private properties owned by the town halls, together with legal ownership documents – as a safety net for the poor. But actually this law is a triple failure: first, most of the town halls didn’t apply it, the procedures being time consuming; secondly, the land is agricultural land, it is not allowed to build on it; and third, the poorest Roma (who are the desired target of the law) wouldn’t have the initial investment money even to start performing subsistence agriculture, on those land plots.

3.2 The houses Most of the houses don’t have a building authorization. According to the local authorities estimations in February 2007, at the level of the entire locality (Lehliu-sat and Sapunari village), there was a total of 66 households without building authorizations for the houses. Obtaining this authorization would imply spending a lot of money on paperwork and a lot of time on expecting the final decision. And even if some of the households would choose to pass through this process, it is likely that they wouldn’t be granted a building authorization for the improvised building materials and improvised sustaining structures. But the local authorities decided to “tolerate” this situation – mostly because the housing situation cannot be solved otherwise . Thus, they rather accept the negative effects of this semi-legality – such as not being allowed to legally connect to facilities or TV and not being able to contract calamity insurance. Even if the old family houses have or at least had a construction authorization, all the houses of the children and grandchildren – who more recently set their own families – don’t have such a document. In such situations, the decision is usually a political one: the local authorities either decide to demolish the improvised houses, either decide to invest money in legalizing the settlement, or “close their eyes” to the status quo.

4. Infrastructure 4.1. Water There is no running water in the village, but only wells. Some Romanian families financed their own running water system; the same did the town hall and medical center. The school was only wells in the yard. In the Roma community, some of the houses (about 4-5) don’t even have a well, but need to take the water from the neighbors. The same water is used for washing and drinking – even though there is no water control in the locality. Some say that the water is not pure enough to drink. For washing, people use a basin/ bucket, in the living room – which is very complicated in winter, when the entire family is crowded in one room (see chapter 7). There are only 2 options for the family members who need to wash themselves: either send the rest of the family outside (in the cold or to other crowded neighbor families), or wash in front of everybody – practice which affects the intimacy and strongly influences the social interactions and roles in the household. Doing the laundry in winter is not less complicated than washing, as the poor heating facilities and materials must be used to cook, to keep the temperature at a surviving level and to heat the water.

4.2. Electricity There are 5 households without electricity, at the edge of the village. The last power polls were installed only few meters away from these houses – but far enough so that the people cannot even install some illegal cables. These households would have the possibility to pay the monthly costs for electricity 10

(especially that their level of consume wouldn’t be high). So, they are waiting for the local authorities to bring up some more polls, to reach their houses. Interesting enough, one of the men in the Roma community (who mentioned us about the good income he receives from coordinating construction works in Bucharest) said he will finally finance the electricity polls from his own money, because he can’t longer bear seeing his neighbors sitting in the dark. He said he will do it although he is aware that this is the local authorities’ duty. The fact that people still live at the candle light is not assumed as a priority by the town hall – who mentioned other priorities – or by the facilitator – who tried, in a casual conversation, to convince one of the women from those depraved households that other people in the Roma community could have other priorities to “complain” about. Other families could not legally install electricity in their households – either because of economic reason, or because lacking formal property documents. So they pulled illegal wires from their neighbors and pay directly to them. The payment amount is settled before, on a verbal understanding and intuitive. The usual amount stated by our interview subjects, who didn’t use a fridge or a music set - was about 70 ron (20 euros) per month. Sometimes, the same house gives illegal electricity to more neighbors – which is quite a dangerous practice, considering the improvised nature of the installations and isolations. Electricity is basically used for lighting and – in rare cases – for TV and music sets. Even fewer households have a fridge (actually in use). Considering that most of the households consist of one room (see chapter 7), it means that lighting usually consists of just one bulb per household. As we noticed, even the members of the better off households in the area (the Romanian informal leader, living among Roma) were satisfied when, while visiting, we said we don’t need the lights on, we can manage with natural light. The street lighting doesn’t cover the entire Roma community, just the access streets that come from DN3 towards the ending communal streets. It consists of one simple bulb about every 8-9 meters, on a wooden poll.

4.3. Sewage system Except very few Romanian houses, the town hall and the medical center, all houses have the toilet outside, in the garden, basically consisting of a pit. Previous research observations showed that the condition of the school toilets is hard to accept. The better off Roma households can afford to build a small covered cabin around the toilet pit, but most of the households have just a small wooden fence abound the pit. There is even a couple of households who couldn’t afford building this fence, thus the members use the toilet from the neighbors. This situation is still common for many Romanian villages. Even the richer villages lack sanitation systems. In this case, the indicator of poverty is the impossibility (lack of materials) to build a cover around it. In addition, we noticed the improvised nature of the toilet cabins, when any. Their doors, roofs and walls were set up and assembled in quite a clumsy manner, proving the lack of experience and knowledge in building such structures.

4.4. Garbage disposal The garbage landfill is 1km away from the Roma community. On one hand, this is far enough to reduce the toxicity; on the other hand, this points out to the absence of a garbage collecting system. Thus, households have to manage their own garbage, individually. Some have the habit to burn the garbage in their stoves, as fuel or simply to get rid if it. Others improvised a pit at the edge of the property or at the edge of the field (for the houses in the last line) and throw the garbage there. In some cases, especially for those who breed animals/ poultries, the household members are interested in “selecting” the waste: the organic waste goes to the animals / poultries or to the ground and other materials are burned in the stoves.

In a previous research phase, the school director complained about the fact that Roma children throw garbage everywhere around the school yard and play with garbage. She stated that she has tried for many years to educate the children from the Roma settlement about waste and how to handle it, but without success. Despite the fact that the director considered this issue to be representative for the Roma children in Lehliu, from our own observations, the waste management doesn’t function better even in big cities such as Bucharest, where everybody (no ethnic difference) throws the garbage on the streets, with no remorse. We think that this is a problem at the national level and needs several means and years of education.

4.5. Heating/cooking installations The entire locality lacks a connection to the gas pipe. Some houses use gas cylinders for heating the stove and cookers. As far as we saw, only 2-3 such cases are in the Roma community (among which one is a Romanian family in severe poverty). Here, the heating is mostly fueled by wood pieces, corn cobs and stalks taken after the agricultural works, small dried braches of the surrounding bushes and even garbage. In almost all Roma houses, the stoves are used both for cooking and heating. The stoves are made of adobe, sometimes whitewashed abode. They are positioned near the beds – the main piece of furniture, used for almost all activities (see chapter 7). This positioning makes them dangerous, especially in households with high density. In winter, some Roma steal the wood or cut tree braches from around DN3 but – according to authorities’ declarations – these small infractions are tolerated. During our winter visit in December we saw smoke coming out only from few houses (2 or 3). It is true, it was during day-time – maybe the time when most of the dwellers were not at home. In summer, in order to take advantage of the good weather and reduce the inner density, the cooking and dinning takes place outside, in the yards. There are rumors that a glass factory will be built near Calarasi and it will bring the gas pipe in the area. But the town hall considers that the investment is too big (impossible, for the moment) and the issue not a priority enough for a bigger effort. The decision is rather to wait for a better moment, in the imprecise future.

4.6. Communication facilities Although there is a phone cable in the locality, no household in the Roma settlement has any contract for home phone. Actually, such a contract would be profitable only if the number of home calls would be high enough – which rarely happens in rural areas, especially when there are mobile networks. Most of the young Roma men have mobile phones, with prepaid cards (not yearly contracts). They got the phones from the bigger towns around, usually bought second hand (stolen merchandise). They use them mostly for job announcements but also to talk to relatives or dear ones who are away of the village. Few of the Roma households have TV sets and satellite dishes – which were installed for free by a national company (who had a publicity campaign, installing free dishes), which also has small monthly prices for the contract.

5. The household surroundings The way the space around the household/house is used is just as important in assessing the housing situation. Especially that in rural areas the surroundings of the household are a continuation/prolongation of the house – both in social and economic sense7.

5.1. House position The Roma houses are aligned along the small mud streets at the edge of the village. Considering that each house is built on its old family land, it is not odd that the houses are spread and not crowded into each other. Only in the few cases of large families having the economical means to expand the dwelling area, there are 2 houses on the same piece of land. The houses are small and positioned in the center of the land plots. The exterior aspect of most houses is rather similar to sheds.

5.2. Yards Most of the yards are marked by fences, even if improvised ones. It is possible that most of these fences were recently built, in this “better” year. Very few families grow agricultural products (usually 7

Accordingly, in urban areas the uses of the surrounding areas are indicators of the indoors conditions.

onion, potatoes, beans for self-consume) in the yard and even less breed animals (one pig, one horse, not more) or poultries in the yard. Fruit trees can rarely be seen in the yards. The plants here are mostly wild (if any, in the less dried summers). Usually, the functions of the yards are: 1. the toilet is located here, a pit surrounded by wooded fence; the garbage disposal, as well (if any) 2. the laundry are dried here 3. in summer, this is the main socializing space and the main space for domestic activities â&#x20AC;&#x201C; for cooking, eating, playing, washing, hanging out. Only in very few households I noticed that the gate of the yard was linked to the house entrance by a stoned path, although the autumn and winter bring a lot of mud. In summer, most of the yards are just small plots of dried, tough/stiff, empty land. One aspect is representative for the yards in this settlement: the mud for the mud bricks is usually taken from the yards, thus the yards bear the marks of this process: huge deep holes can be noticed at the limit of the land plots. These holes remain uncover for a long time, sometimes actually transforming into garbage pits. After a while, the pits are covered by weeds. In time, these holes lead to the instability of the ground and tend to form a micro-relief improper for building.

5.3. Playgrounds As expected, there are no facilities for children to play in the housing area. Because of this, the childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s games are mostly improvised. If the children play outside, the risk of escaping the parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; surveillance is high. If they play in the house, the high density of the rooms brings the risk of touching dangerous objects or heating/ cooking installations, by mistake. 14

In addition, considering the fact that the garbage is usually thrown around the dwelling area, the hygiene of the children’s environment comes to issue – which brings us further (or back) to the precarious washing conditions. Many children actually play with broken things that were thrown away by the adults – such as bike wheels and other old metal frames, plastic glasses. The other usual games are the ball games – with whatever balls the children can find or improvise. The empty yards are good for this. These are only few elements which show that the playgrounds for children are a complex and important issue in the community’s life and housing improvement.

6. Building materials At the locality level, there are only houses. Some of them are made of bricks and stones, but the lower quality materials used in the Roma settlement are not exclusive to this settlement: one can see adobe and mud-brick houses among the rest of the houses in the village. Still, the overall aspect of the Roma settlement is much worse than the rest of the locality. As a previous researcher said, the houses rather look like barns – this mostly because of the small dimensions, minimalist endowment of the houses and improvised nature of the building plans and materials. Under these circumstances, any building material becomes an important resource, vital for the living conditions. Thus, one of the important issues is where from do the poor (Roma) get the materials to build/ improve/ improvise their shelters. As we found out, the materials are: 1. received from better off neighbors who built/ improved their houses and gave the remaining (extra) materials to those who helped them in construction 2. taken from the construction companies, building sites or storehouses where the members of the household work by day 3. leftovers (old, scrap materials) thrown away by other villagers 4. self-made or simply taken from nature (mud, clay, branches, corn cobs 5. obtained through buying or steeling. The neighbors and relatives help each other in building or repairing the houses. The interview subjects said that this is the only way they can get something done; otherwise they couldn’t make it on their own. Especially the men who actually have working experience in constructions are the key helpers.

6.1. Roofs Many of our subjects complained about this construction element. Considering all the gathered statements, this is the most problematic element in building/ repairing/ improvising the house. The frequent problems are: that the water infiltrates through the roof materials; that the roof falls when it is raining; that the roof was taken away during summer storms; that the roof is either old or un-sustained and threatens to fall down. These problems appear mostly because of the improvised nature of the roofs. The usual materials are: old tiles; wood boards and even some bigger tree branches; thin cement boards; tin plates; combinations between wood, plastic and tin plates; one household even combined corn cobs with wood and cement boards, in order to ensure a minimal resistance. Of course, all these materials don’t have a long life; reason why they need to be constantly repaired (better said “patched up”). Because of the fragility of these materials and the fragility of the resistance structures, the ceilings are usually very low, at the height level of an adult, not higher. We could notice cases in which the roof boards were held by stones, especially for those houses covered with tin fragments. Some roofs made of tiles have holes not because of the low quality of the material, but because the lack of knowledge (of the constructors) to arrange the tiles and to close the lateral margins. This shows that the constructors – who are actually the household members and 15

sometimes their relatives – have neither access to learning construction techniques nor resources to hire more experienced workers. But there are some better off Roma households with proper roofs, made of tin or tiles, most of them recently repaired (the same effect of the last “better” years).

6.2. Walls Most of the houses in the Roma settlement have adobe and mud brick walls. The mud bricks are usually made by the household members, together with their relatives or neighbors. Clay and thatch are used for making the bricks. The mud brick and adobe walls are sometimes sustained with wire structures (grids). Usually, the mud brick walls are covered with an extra layer of adobe. The worst household cases have gaps in the walls, which in winter are covered with mud and improvised plastic or tin boards. The best cases have their walls whitewashed with lime (some houses were recently whitewashed in summer). We could also notice a couple of new houses made of bricks – the facilitator told us that the household members are brick makers Roma (c r midari). But the houses were very small, the size of a shed, and we were told that many people inhabit that one-room house. So, the better quality of the walls material didn’t really indicate a higher welfare, but the access to some specific construction materials. There are houses with stone foundation (up the ground) and with adobe walls; or with adobe foundations and wooden upper part of the walls or BCA upper part of the walls. Some of the houses have a resistance structure made of wood piles, for the adobe walls. The mixture of construction materials for the same house proves best the precariousness of the housing conditions. It means that the dwellers just used small amounts of construction materials that they had, at different moments in time, and that the 16

construction went on in different phases, according to the opportunities (to find more materials, to get more help from the neighbors or relatives). The walls are also used as storing facilities: the clothes, cooking tools and working tools are hang on the external and internal walls, fixed on nails. This indicates the lack of furniture that usually has the storing function. In rainy autumn and winter, the external walls are covered with plastic sheets, to protect from humidity and cold. In the sunny winter days, the plastic is removed, to dry the walls a little. Sometimes, the inner walls are covered with plastic or carpets, as an attempt of thermal/ humidity isolation. We also noticed ornaments: pictures cuts or newspaper cuts, simple paper icons, pieces of decorative cloths. A frequent phenomenon, in the last 2 years, is the improvised extension of the houses: the initial room is extended, usually gaining not more than 2 square meters; the former wall is demolished and a new one, just a little pushed outside, is build; in this process, the roof must be a little extended as well, which changes its angle and its regularity, thus affecting its resistance (or the roof is left as it is and the new house extension remains vulnerable to rain). The effort implied in this action is big enough. What it actually accomplishes is: negatively affecting the resistance of the roof; leaving the walls uncovered for rain; for only a small inner space, not even enough for an extra bed. As in the case of improvised roofs, these improvisations show the lack of knowledge and experience in construction â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which would represent an essential resource.

6.3. Doors and windows Most of the houses have glass windows. But they are usually very small and only one or two for each room/ house. This helps preventing heat waste in winter and also lowers the investment in a proper glass window. But it reduces the amount of natural light, for doing domestic works and for children homework. Probably most of the windows are â&#x20AC;&#x153;second handâ&#x20AC;? ones, received from other construction sites 17

or from other people who improved their old windows. But there are also quite some cases in which the windows are improvised out of pieces of tin boards, plastic sheets or even textiles. What we could notice was that most of the houses which had proper glass windows, no matter how small, painted their wood frames in a differentiated color. Some of the houses – even from those made of mud bricks – had curtains at the windows. The doors are made of wood and, for the poorer households, tin boards. In the most cases these are also “second hand” elements. Some house don’t have any door frame, but most have a wooden one.

6.4. Floors The low quality of the floors is a common characteristic for most villages in Romania. Except the richest families, the typical households have stone (sometimes cement) floors covered with simple wood boars or just rugs. In Lehliu, most of the Roma houses have adobe floors or simply ground. Sometimes these are covered with plastic or – very rarely – with rugs. The majority of possessions (household tools) stay directly on the ground (except for the clothes and dishes). The bad condition of the floors is associated with humidity and leads, in time, to health problems.

7. Interiors The fact that most of the Roma families in Lehliu rather spend their summers outdoors and rather “move” their household activities outdoors indicates the precariousness of the interiors. The main function of the interiors is to offer a place to sleep and a place to hide from cold and rain. But this doesn’t mean that the people don’t try to make the best out of it8.

7.1. Density This is a key issue in most Roma settlements. The typical image of a Roma family is: having many children and living in crowded interiors, with several family generations packed up together. Unfortunately, most of the Roma households from Lehliu fit into this frame. Most of the houses have only one room, in which an entire family is crammed. We could estimate an average of 4-5 people per room (house). Some houses have an entrance hall or a separated space for cooking. The older houses might have more rooms, even up to 4 (one example). But in the case of these older houses, the main disadvantage is that the wholes in the roofs and walls render some of the rooms non-functional – which brings the situation back to a similar density. Only few large families had the resources (be that money, materials, labor force and knowledge) to start building a new house (usually one room, as well) for the “parents generation”. And only very few families decided they can afford to have intimacy – separating the children in one room and the parents in another. Thus, usually one couple of grandparents, their children (about 2-3 of this generation) with their life partners and their own children (from 2 to 5) share, in different arrangements, the same household. There are extreme cases of poverty, strongly linked to extreme levels of density: a single mother living in one room with her 5 children; a family of 8 persons living together in a one room house; a family of 16 persons, related to this one, used to live for 27 years in a 2 rooms house (until some of them moved out, in the previous mentioned house – which is relatively recent). We should point out that there is a history of high density for many poor families: the grandparents used to live crammed together with their children, who are now crammed together with their own children. 8

Unfortunately, this study cannot focus on this “relational” aspect.

The high density also means that the same space is used for sleeping, cooking, eating, washing – which negatively affects the efficiency of these domestic activities, the intimacy of the household members, the hygiene, the children’s education and surveillance (indirectly). The health issues are critical: there is a direct correlation between level of poverty, high housing density and the spread of the so called “poverty diseases” – mostly tuberculosis. Cases of this poverty disease are identified among Roma children in Lehliu – mainly in these “extreme density” households. Interventions in solving these extreme housing situations should be a priority. But we should consider as well the fact that, although extreme poverty usually generates high locative density, a high density doesn’t necessarily mean extreme poverty – other indicators most complete the profile9.

7.2. Organization of space The organization of space is in strong relation with the density, on one hand, and the organization of family roles, on the other hand. Thus, the parents usually share the room and often the bed with their young children. The grandparents share the same room and sometimes bed with their children (the parents), their life partners and (if necessary) with their younger children. The still single adolescents are usually given a bed of their own. There is no separation according to gender (as would be if women were sleeping in one bed, men in another), age or health issues. But the men who go to work are given more attention – they take the right to sleep alone, during daytime, after they had difficult shifts and the rest of the family respects the silence. The housing space shares a common characteristic with the furniture: the multiple functionality. The same room usually serves for sleeping, cooking, eating, washing, playing, dressing and undressing.

7.3. Furniture For many households, the furniture is minimalist: for sleeping and cooking. The few furniture articles and household tools perform different functions, as mentioned before. For example, the beds are used both for sleeping, eating, and sitting. The beds are usually old, made of wood, with simple structures and covered with quite old blankets. The tables are usually improvised and the chairs as well, if any. The poorest families don’t have any other piece of furniture – the nails in the walls are used as wardrobes and cupboards. But there are few Roma families in Lehliu with a better living standard: more beds with better quality blankets; the pillows are not old; there are wooden chairs and at least a table, wardrobe and TV set. The number of better equipped households was slowly increasing in the last 2 years.

7.4. Decoration Inner decorations can be present even in the poorest households. Their symbolic importance is proved by the fact that they are set on the main wall of the house – the wall in front of the door or the wall near the bed. They usually consist of paper icons, newspaper and commercial cuts, colored plastic sheets and inherited cloths. As mentioned in sub-chapter 6.2. some households hanged curtains at the windows and flower pots. This should remind us that making the habitat as cozy as possible is a basic human need. In the same time, decoration shows symbolic affiliation to the space and the sense of “being at home”.

In other villages in the country, for example Buzescu village, there are very rich Roma families, who share the same bedroom among approximately 10-15 household members and guests – but use many good beds, elegant furniture such as coffee tables and cupboards with porcelain ornaments.

8. Indicators of poverty 8.1. Severe poverty From the policy perspective, this level of poverty shows that the individuals affected by it have some resources that could improve the situation – if some personal choices and some local authorities’ decisions were made right. There are Roma families suffering by severe poverty, in Lehliu. At the locative level, the indicators of severe poverty identified for this community are: - formalized ownership papers for the land, but no construction authorization for the house - the presence of the household resources to perform agriculture for subsistence, on the personal land plot, actually in the garden (breeding some animals, growing some vegetables in the garden), but not to gain a profit out of it - the possibility to buy gas cylinders for heating and cooking, at least from time to time; or a separated room in the house, for cooking; but still not having the standard level of comfortable temperature - having glass windows, with curtains or flower pots, but still having only small and few windows - not more than 2 persons/ bed; - affording to pay the travel to Bucharest or Calarasi, in order to look for a job.

8.2. Extreme poverty This level of poverty characterizes those individuals/ households who don’t have resources to exit the poverty state; on the contrary, they are caught in the vicious circle of poverty: their children have high risk of poverty, their situation has low probability of improving – without external help. Focusing mainly on housing situation indicators, we could identify the following extreme poverty clues, for the settlement in Lehliu: - body burns from heating facilities, as a sign of high density - different wounds on the children’s bodies, as sign of precarious playing - no source of water in the yard - the toilet pit in the yard doesn’t have a protective fence or there was no space to build a toilet pit in the yard - windows improvised from other materials but glass - needing to steal for obtaining wood and other fuels for eating the house - not having a door frame - tuberculosis – the poverty illness by excellence - having debts – at the local shop, at the social benefits service (town hall).

9. The complexity of the situation The housing conditions are strongly connected to other socio-economic factors, such as level of income, level of education, social solidarity and leadership, discrimination experiences and local authorities approach of the situation (to mention the most important connections).

9.1. Lack of job opportunities This is the key problem affecting the entire locality. And, as an observation, this is the key problem affecting most of the localities in Romania. After 1989, the industries which used to employ most of the active population collapsed: the former communist factories were bankrupt; the building sites of the ambitious communist plans were 20

closed. Unemployment (mostly unregistered10) is what “transition” meant for many villagers. Subsistence agriculture is, for many Lehliu villagers, the only safety net. In addition, as the local authorities complain, in the last years there has been no real investments in the locality. The few entrepreneurs (12 small shops, 1 cars& tools repair shop, 1 pharmacy, 1 barber shop, 1 mill, 2 agricultural enterprises) are offering job opportunities for not more than 100 persons. Most youngsters and young adults try to leave the village, for better job opportunities, targeting especially the cities of Bucharest and Calarasi. The active men from the Roma community are targeting the bigger localities, as well. But not in order to permanently leave the village – this would be impossible, considering their families, on one hand, and the unaffordable living costs in bigger localities, on the other hand. Thus, commuting from Lehliu to Bucharest, Calarasi, Lehliu-Gara11 is the most frequent practice. But this practice is also problematic. On one hand, because, as mentioned in the first chapter, transportation costs are quite high. On the other hand, because most of the Roma from Lehliu don’t have a formal, regular job, but perform “work by day”. Thus, only those who have the certainty of getting a decent paid job in the city can afford to make the investment of one journey; none of them can afford to travel to the city just to search for a job – which strengthens the vicious circle of irregular, informal, uncertain jobs. Some women have qualifications in tailoring – but they find work only to be paid with the minimum guaranteed wage and even this is not available all the time – but according to the requests at the factories in the near-by localities.

9.2. Precarious sources of income The scarcity of the income sources is in strong relation to the lack of job opportunities, on one hand, and the poor education and level of work qualification that characterizes the Roma from Lehliusat12, on the other hand. There are only rare cases in which unqualified workers are well paid, even in the big cites. Moreover, unqualified workers are usually informally employed and the work request is seasonally conditioned. In other words, most of the Roma in Lehliu perform informal work, with no right to medical insurance or accident insurance, under the risk of remaining unpaid at the end of the day. Most of them work in constructions, on different sites mostly in Bucharest; thus, the amount and type of work depends on the season13. Other men work in security companies, performing unqualified work, but under high mental pressure and under very strict rules. For example: the guards have to work mostly night hours, shifts of 12 hours without breaks; the first time they would be caught sleeping on the job, they would be fired. The seasonal work in agriculture offers some immediate advantages: each person receives about 63 euros a day, plus food, drinks, cigarettes and it is more accessible in terms of distance. But this income source is available only at certain times of the year and leaves the rest of the time uncovered – in the situation that most of the families cannot save this money, but consume them immediately. Most of the Roma families in the locality suffer from addiction to the social benefits14 delivered by the town hall department for social protection. Out of the 90 requests for social benefits, from the overall locality, 80 belong to the Roma. Most of the interviewed persons (both from the Roma settlement and local authorities) state that the social benefits, together with the school allowance for children who attend school, are the only regular source of income for the families in the Roma settlement and are the main source of income for many families in this settlement. The actual amount of the monthly social benefit is 10

Unregistered also means unpaid. In the order of preferences and opportunities. 12 Which is an outcome of the communist work, education and Roma assimilation policies. 13 Outdoor works in warm seasons – better paid but more force-demanding; indoors works in cold seasons – more techniquedemanding. 14 The main form of social benefit is the VMG – “the minimum guaranteed income” – which completes the family overall income to the level of the minimum guaranteed income in Romania. The request procedure is quite complicated: the recipient has to pass through a lot of paperwork. 11

decided by the town hall, according to the budget planning, to the priorities and – as some interviewers suggested – to the political decision of the town hall representatives (who grant full social benefits only in winter and smaller amounts in summer, when it is known that the Roma perform informal work in agriculture). Because of these fluctuations, conflicts raise between the Roma and the town hall representatives. Among the most difficult social cases, one can mention a mono-parental family, in which the mother has to bring up 5 children, one of them being physically challenged, and her only solution is to prostitute for the drivers passing by on DN3.

9.3. Alphabetization and education One good aspect in this field is that there is there is only one school in the village and only one class at each level of education, thus there is no school segregation against the Roma children. In additions, the school is well equipped and warm. The school abandon is low for this generation of Roma children – partly motivated by the children allowance for attending pupils. Still, the level of education and alphabetization is very low in the Roma group (the majority of them has 4 classes, only few have about 8, with no qualification) – because of historical reasons combined with economic ones. The Roma minority generally has a very low educational mobility. In Lehliu, this is perpetuated by the fact that most Roma children have no conditions for doing homework, no study materials and homework assistance form their low educated families. In addition, teenagers start having household responsibilities after a certain age and must take care of the younger brothers. As many previous studies and projects already showed, education is one of the important intervention domains for improving the situation of the Roma and the poor, on the long run.

9.4. Health conditions In short, the health condition for most of the dwellers in the Roma community from Lehliu-sat can be describes as follows: - because of not having a formal work contract, most of the adults don’t have a health insurance or an accident insurance for workers - only “VMG” social benefit receivers have access to health care (VMG benefit includes health insurance for all the members of the granted family) - lack of information about the new medical system (which actually is quite difficult to understand). Maybe this is a reason why most of the Roma come to the doctors only in emergency situations – even if they have the right for regular controls - a recent pharmacy was opened in the village - a medical unit functions daily till 2 pm, run by 1 doctor and 1 nurse, who come from daily commute from Bucharest. The doctor claims she also treats the persons without any insurance; but these “uncovered” people cannot purchase subsided drugs - there was a TBC epidemics in the last years, in the entire region, now it is stopped. But some Roma children and adults (who are not under medical surveillance) are suspects of carrying the disease - the costs for analysis and pregnancy controls are very high for those uncovered by insurance – the only possibility is to declare (with the doctor’s help) an emergency - all Roma children are vaccinated - birth control issues: birth control methods are not very popular in the village, generally. The Roma group has a much higher fertility rate - there is no health mediator for the Lehliu community.

9.5. Mediation structures and civil society support In Lehliu locality there is no association or NGO. There is no health mediator – who could make things easier for the community (identify TBC cases, identify medical cases, explain the medical system to the dwellers, explain contraception methods, observe the medication of the ill ones). Only recently, a young man from the community was trained in order to become a school mediator. He should be in charge of facilitating the “Second Chance” program for unschooled adults in the community. But he is quite soft, young and busy, so his performance doesn’t yet show in any way. He will continue to be trained in the mediation direction. There is a facilitator between the community and the local authorities. But, strange enough, he doesn’t live in the locality and he is not Roma. Moreover, he doesn’t seam to be taken too seriously by the local authorities and – each time our team met him – he seamed to have missed for a long time from Lehliu. The people are not coagulated around him.

9.6. Informal leadership As far as we could identify, there are few local informal leaders – who represent “resource people”. They are worth mentioning: - one adult man (M) who works for an architecture office in Bucharest, as a collaborator constructer, and gathers other men from the community around him. Practically, he is one of the main sources of well paid jobs for the Roma man in Lehliu. Although he has no formal qualifications, he is quite literate, reads laws and architecture manuals; - one middle age single Romanian woman, who lives on the same street with the Roma, but has better living conditions. She opens her door to all her neighbors, who often join her for a talk or a glass of wine or a piece of advice. Her discourse is quite socially oriented, strongly political, but spoken on a casual language. Roma of her age and a little younger than her respect her (but not the young generations, who consider her a little crazy) - one shop owner (the closest shop to the community) who sells on credit for many Roma families. The women would want to propose him as a future representative of the Roma in the Local Council, although he is Romanian.

9.7. Level of participation The community is quite passive. This is not strange for a rural community, with generally poor living standards, set in the south of the country. To mention some of the indicators of passivity: - there is no Roma representative in the Local Council - there is no Roma expert in the town hall - many Roma didn’t vote (actually, many villagers didn’t vote) - most of the men are too busy looking for work and to earn vital money, thus they don’t take part in other “communal” activities - the poor garbage management (leaving the garbage wherever) shows a low internalization of the community space and community duties - speaking of community duties, people go round the rule to perform “community work” in return for the VMG15 (community work usually means cleaning around or digging ditches). This happens because performing community work means a day of loosing the black labor market offers, while working hard for a very small amount of money

Roma are the main VMG beneficiaries.

we heard only one person (the same M) deciding to take action: stating that if the local authorities won’t perform their duty and won’t bring the electricity poles till the last houses, he will pay this community work from his own pocket, because he cannot stand the situation anymore16 there is no one from the Roma community to volunteer for the Local Council (and to be accepted as a representative by the others).

9.8. The church We propose to see this religious institution17 and its relation to the Roma settlement from 2 perspectives. The first is the pragmatic one and refers to direct facts that affect the Roma population. From this perspective, we can mention the following facts: - sometimes, the poorest Roma children go to the church, in order to receive some food, some presents and other immediate benefits - sometimes, the church organizes collects for the poor, from which some Roma households also beneficiate - some time ago, the priest came to the Roma community and blessed the houses (in a specific orthodox ritual). The second perspective is the social representation one, referring mostly to attitudes and reciprocal trust. From this point of view, there are differences in our interviews: the people in the Roma community openly declare not liking and trusting the priest, because he is only pretending to sustain them. They complain about his behavior and even that he is generally stupid. On the other hand, the priest himself and a person from the school board declare what a great job the church does (and the priest) for the children and their moral education. As an objective fact, the priest moved away from the village, to the closes town and thus he commutes when he was to perform services. The tensed relations between the community and the priest is actually a disadvantage for the community – as for other rural areas the church serves as a valuable social resource – motivating participation, teaching household money management skills, raising social solidarity between minorities and the majority, socializing the youngsters etc. As expected, in many rural localities, the neo-protestant churches have this potential of being development factors.

9.9. The local authorities The perception and attitude of the local authorities towards the problems in the Roma settlement are crucial factors affecting the dynamics of the situation. They are also key factors in any intervention plan to be constructed. Unfortunately, in Lehliu the only concern for most town hall members/ employees is to follow their own economic interest (and to maintain the position in the local governance). This came out after the repeated interviews, discussions, telephones, meetings – under the appearance of nice words and promises. One unpleasant observation we made, after the first set of coopering dialogues and helpful disposition, was that the local authorities actually rather have a segregated Roma community at the edge of the village – under the pretext that they actually like it there. Secondly, the local government representative don’t have a clue about the realities of the Roma community and what the priorities are. Thirdly, they blame the Roma for their poverty – they are lazy, don’t have a sense of property and don’t have the sense of improving their life. Last, but not least, there is the more pragmatic level on interaction between the community and the town hall: - every time a town hall department wants to find out something from or to transmit something to the Roma community, they send the cleaning lady there, because she is of Roma ethnicity

16 17

The house is not his, nor his relatives’. Orthodox rite.

the people complain about the local authorities not doing the job: ignoring the houses without electricity, delaying the finalization of the local road - the VMG beneficiaries have a specific relation with the social assistance department, which lends them money, before the payment deadline, for different personal needs (and then retains the sum out of the VMG) - the people have deep doubts towards the economic interests that might actually govern the town hall. In such a situation, any external initiative or a civil society initiative has 2 options: either 1. tries to go round the local authorities as much as possible, actually being “trickier” than them, or 2. is patient and designs a long term intervention plan, expects a long process of negotiation and more “battle fields” for interventions. These are ingredients of lobby and advocacy actions in such situations.

9.10. Discrimination Discrimination against Roma is generally high in Romania. In the same time, it is combined with the discrimination of the poor, which is also high. Thus, stereotypes such as “they are poor because they are lazy” are combined with covered racist statements such as “the Roma always remains a Roma”18. Housing segregation is one of the strongest discrimination forms. In addition, it is granted with the generally accepted excuse “they want to be segregated” – even the facilitator says this, fact that is really worrying. On top of these basic discrimination elements, en entire social construction is built: the Roma are lazy (the school board), the Roma have to sense of property and belonging (the town hall secretary), they are good people, but still underclass (local entrepreneur), the Roma never volunteer, want money for everything (mayor, teacher, local entrepreneur). It is worth remembering that, against the common belief that communism gave the Roma all the chances they could get, the Roma have suffered a long uninterrupted series of historic discriminations and disadvantages. Any form of nowadays discrimination should be discussed in this long term perspective. Actual discrimination experiences were not mentioned by our interviewed subjects.

18 “Tiganu’ tot tigan”.