Abstract
The post-1989 objectives of the Slovak housing policy have resulted in the large-scale privatisation of state rental flats and the reduction in new rental housing. State-subsidised social rental housing programmes have been unable to meet the social demand for affordable rental dwellings. Socially marginalised groups, in particular Roma people, have been hit the most by the post-1989 changes and the lack of official social housing construction. Project Building Hope is an alternative integrated housing approach, offering Roma people better life conditions by integrating housing issues with other policies related to social empowerment. In order to implement the innovative project, a broad coalition between public and private sector actors is established, which is able to change the perception of Roma in the community and influence local policy-making processes.
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Notes
105,738 people identified themselves as Roma during the 2011 census (over the total population of 5.3 million).
There are altogether 21,168 dwellings, out of which 10,411 are apartments, 4936 with substandard quality. There are also 8918 regular bricked and wooden houses with legal tenure, and another 5065 houses that are not registered in the land registry, and 4797 other structures that are mostly shanty houses built out of spare material or container houses (Sládek 2014).
Estimation is made by the mayor of Rankovce, Mr. Stanislav Hada and Roma Atlas 2013.
The Savings Programme is also implemented as an individual project, which helped over 800 clients attend financial education programmes and over 400 clients successfully completed the savings programme itself between 2006 and 2012.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to acknowledge the financial assistance of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sports of the Slovak Republic through VEGA grant No. 1/0216/14. They also sincerely thank Martin Vavrinčík and Katarina Smatanová from ETP Slovakia and other partners for their valuable comments, advices and support.
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Szüdi, G., Kováčová, J. “Building hope: from a shack to 3E house”—Innovative housing approach in the provision of affordable housing for Roma in Slovakia. J Hous and the Built Environ 31, 423–438 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-015-9469-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-015-9469-y