2.1.5. Romania

discrepancies even at regional levels as there is higher demand for housing in urban areas and lower in the rural ones (Housing Europe, 2015). This sustains the idea that the problems and solutions for affordable housing are contextual and should be analysed in this manner. Despite this, there have been global events that have affected the affordability of housing at large scales (UN Habitat, 2011). The Housing Europe report also argues that the 2009 Global Economic Crisis hugely affected the European housing industry and especially the affordable sector (Housing Europe, 2015). The report shows that the situation has not improved since then and the effects are: There are more homeless people in Europe today than 2009 and there is a higher demand for affordable homes in the Union than the governments can provide. (Housing Europe, 2015)

2.1.5. Romania

In Romania, the term affordable housing is not a separate topic to social housing. It does not appear in the government official policies and there are not income thresholds relating to what the affordable housing costs should be. According to the National Housing Agency, there are programmes that deal with specific groups of people such as housing for young adults, young specialists or the Roma communities but they are not defined or included in affordable housing schemes but rather additional social programmes (NHA, 2016).The state owns the entire social housing and is just 2.3% of the housing stock (Valceanu & Suditu, 2015). It is the lowest in the European Union and far from the amount available in more developed countries such as UK, France, or Austria where they range from 10% to 30% (Housing Europe, 2015). This may indicate a certain issue that is contextual to Romania.

In conclusion, Romania does not have an income threshold or policies about affordable housing. The topic cannot be interpreted through the lenses of the policies developed by other governments, because their approach is different to the Romanian one. As presented above, among the countries analysed, there is a disparity when talking about the income thresholds that define the need of affordable housing. At the same time, there is a similar approach towards dealing with the possibilities of each household by considering local incomes and house prices. The lack of clear policies and thresholds on this issue, makes it difficult to