2019–2023
Desire Foundation continued to offer administrative and organization support for Căși sociale NOW!, which grew as an autonomous movement, therefore we have created a dedicated website for it, which you can access here: https://casisocialeacum.ro/
2017–2019
Our main goal is to transform the Social Housing NOW! campaign run between 2016-2017 into an engine of a movement for public housing and housing justice, and continue having a contribution to the trans-local platform Blocul pentru Locuire formed in July 2017.
We start from sustaining, securing and enlarging the effects of two former projects of Foundation Desire: “Justice for Roma through the legal enforcement of housing rights (Cantonului street, Cluj-Napoca)“, supported by Human Rights Initiative between April 2016 – February 2017, and “Consult us. Roma are not garbage” financed by Roma Initiative Office between September-December 2016.
“Căși sociale ACUM!/ Social housing NOW!: The fight of marginalized Roma for an anti-racist politics of public housing in Romania” continues a model of intervention that applies and promotes a social justice- and rights-based approach towards housing. It acknowledges the latter not only as a fundamental right, but also as a primordial need violated and unfulfilled in several cases not only in terms of adequacy of the house itself where people live, but also due to the character of the territory where this is placed (such as nearby polluted sites). Our new project continues to illustrate how socio-economic justice including housing justice might be promoted and how people’s empowerment might be served through the legal enforcement of socio-economic rights, and in particular housing rights and the right to be housed in a healthy environment. This is a project that keeps on mobilizing activism for these rights. Moreover, it empowers the most marginalized categories of the precariatized working class, including Roma to become a political actor struggling for an anti-racist politics of public housing as an instrument of securing people’s (spatial and social) belonging to the city and of imagining and building up a society based on the values of equality and solidarity.
2016–2017
Social Housing Now! is a civic-activist initiative that aims to problematize social housing in the city of Cluj, in the context of the drastic reduction of the public housing fund and the transformation of housing into a real estate business in recent decades, as well as limiting access to social housing precisely to people who are entitled to occupy the public housing fund.
CAMPAIGN SECTION ON THE WEBSITE
Social Housing Now! aims to put the issue of housing rights on the public agenda, in particular access to public housing for socially marginalised people. Through the campaign, we aim to build “social housing” as a political issue and a matter of public interest.
Part of a wider Desire Foundation programme, the Social Housing Now! campaign starts from the deprivation and housing injustices that affect individuals and families living on FN Canton Street. Housing on this street has been the most neglected chapter of the marginalised Pata Rât area, even if it too has been created as a result of several forced evictions from the city or if it too reflects the consequences of an urbanisation policy that keeps certain areas of the city underdeveloped and informal, where socially marginalised people whose labour is exploited in the city’s informal or formal economy find shelter. Starting from the awareness of the history and housing situation of the FN Canton Street, the campaign Social Houses Now! places this particular case in the wider city landscape, interrogated from the perspective of urban housing injustices, class inequalities and the policies that contribute to their production.
The Social Housing Now! joins movements that are questioning social inequalities and injustices, including housing inequalities as a class phenomenon. In order to boost the production of a city for people, not for profit, this campaign proposes a development model for Cluj that expands the state housing fund and allocates an adequate budget for related public investments.
Căși sociale acum! este o iniţiativă civic-activistă ce urmăreşte problematizarea locuirii sociale în oraşul Cluj, în contextul reducerii drastice a fondului public locativ și al transformării locuirii în afacere imobiliară din ultimele decade, cât şi al limitării accesului la locuinţe sociale tocmai persoanelor care sunt îndreptăţite să ocupe fondul locativ public.
Campania Căși sociale acum! îşi propune să aducă subiectul drepturilor locative, pe agenda publică, în particular al accesului la locuinţe din fondul public al persoanelor marginalizate social. Prin campanie, urmărim să construim “locuirea socială” ca subiect politic și ca problemă de interes public.
Parte dintr-un program mai amplu al Fundației Desire, campania Căși sociale acum! pleacă de la deprivările și nedreptățile locative care afectează persoanele și familiile cu domiciliul pe strada Cantonului FN. Locuirea pe această stradă a fost cel mai neglijat capitol al zonei marginalizate Pata Rât, chiar dacă și ea s-a constituit de pe urma mai multor evacuări forțate din oraș sau dacă și ea reflectă consecințele unei politici de urbanizare ce ține în condiții de subdezvoltare și de informalitate anumite teritorii ale orașului, unde își găsesc adăpost persoane marginalizate social a căror muncă este exploatată în economia informală sau formală a urbei. Plecând de la conștientizarea istoriei și situației locative de pe strada Cantonului FN, campania Căși sociale acum! plasează acest caz particular în peisajul mai larg al orașului, interogat din perspectiva nedreptăților urbane locative, a inegalităților de clasă și a politicilor care contribuie la producerea acestora.
Campania Căși sociale acum! se alătură mișcărilor care problematizează inegalitățile și nedreptățile sociale, inclusiv cele locative ca fenomen de clasă. Pentru a impulsiona producerea unui oraș pentru oameni, nu pentru profit, această campanie propune pentru Cluj un model de dezvoltare care extinde fondul locativ de stat și alocă un buget adecvat investițiilor publice aferente.