The Regional Conference “Holistic Approach to Housing for Roma in the Enlargement Region”, which will gather relevant public officials from the enlargement region and point out common challenges, strengths and deficiencies of previous housing initiatives, is to take place in Bar, Montenegro. The meeting is organized under the auspices of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC)’s Roma Integration 2020.

The holistic approach to housing for Roma should be efficient in addressing some of the common challenges they face, such as increased homelessness and insecurity of tenure, legalization issues, poverty affecting sustainability of housing units, lack of accompanying infrastructure, housing measures perpetuating exclusion and ghettoization, cooperation of local and other levels of authority, horizontal cross-institutional cooperation, prejudices of the wider society and the necessity for Roma to adjust certain aspects of life to new forms of housing.

This approach needs to be aligned with the European Social Charter (art. 30 and 31), should closely follow the commitments under theVienna Declaration and consider the conclusions and recommendations from the OSCE documents Roma Housing Settlements in South-East Europe: Summary and Recommendations and Best Practices for Roma Integration.