Decent housing is a fundamental human right which should be embedded in national and European legislation, reads a European Parliament resolution adopted in January last year. Minimum mandatory requirements for healthy homes, including indoor air quality, clean and high-quality drinking water, adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene, connection to sewage and water networks must be introduced at EU level. The document also sets down the goal to end homelessness by 2030.

There were 700,000 homeless people in the EU in 2020, their number having risen by 70% in the past decade. There are no accurate statistics to show how many homeless people there are in Bulgaria. The reasons they lead a vagrant life are highly individual though most often they do not have a home of their own, or their home is unlivable. For the destitute, applying for social housing is often “mission impossible”. 

What are the reasons?

“We took a look at the statistics showing how the number of council houses has changed through the years - the homes in which municipalities can accommodate the destitute at more affordable rent. In 1993 their number on the territory of Sofia was 120,000, now they have now dropped to 9,000, official Sofia municipality data show. On the other hand, there are currently more than 10,000 destitute people in the city who are eligible for such housing,” Stefan Krastev, co-author of a specialized report entitled “A home for all, mission (im)possible”, said in an interview with the BNR.

Because there is a shortage of vacancies, some of the destitute people have to be put up at the temporary accommodation centres for the homeless. But in Sofia there are only three such centres, with a capacity of accommodating 510.

Fifteen whole years ago, the state delegated almost all of its powers regarding housing policy, to municipalities, but they have neither the housing stock, nor the financial resource to put these policies through.

“In the past 30 years the only financial resource that has been coming in for coping with these problems has been from operational programmes connected with regional development. Part of the funding has been spent on building social housing. A total of 1,400 homes have been built in the past 10 years under these operational programmes, which covers around 1% of the real needs in the country,” Krastev said, and added that according to analyses, there need to be at least 85,000 affordable homes nationwide. “The sum needed to build them is around EUR 2 billion.”

During the past two pandemic years alone we have witnessed a great many changes that have altered the way we think about where we lived, as well as the environment we lived in.

“These past few years we have seen more and more people opting to live in smaller towns and villages, buying property there, whole families who work online settling there. Taking care of these families, and most of all the policy for their accommodation is particularly important for each individual municipality, so they can motivate them to stay there, but also to remain in Bulgaria,” architect Iskra Dandolova said in an interview with the BNR.

• More and more young Bulgarians opt for a life outside the big cities

Housing policies are also essential for the development of the economy and the labour processes in the country, she added.

Interviews by Ivana Murdjeva, Hristo Botev channel and Valeria Nikolova, Horizont channel, BNR

Editing by Yoan Kolev