As the European Commission prepares to launch the first-ever European Affordable Housing Plan in 2026, the EURoma Network urges EU policymakers to ensure that the new initiative explicitly addresses the most deprived and excluded housing situations affecting vulnerable groups, particularly the Roma population.
A European Response to a Deepening Housing Crisis
EURoma welcomes the European Commission’s initiative to present a continental strategy for affordable housing, an urgent step at a time when access to decent, sustainable, and affordable homes has become one of Europe’s most pressing social challenges.
While the housing crisis affects broad segments of the population, vulnerable people suffer its impact disproportionately, especially those unable to access social housing. Among them, Roma communities often face an even harsher reality: entrenched discrimination, widespread poverty, and energy insecurity combine to trap many families in substandard or segregated settlements.
Across the EU, thousands of Roma—many of them children—continue to live in precarious dwellings lacking basic services such as running water, electricity, or waste collection. These living conditions not only undermine their health and safety but also perpetuate barriers to education, employment, and social participation. For EURoma, the upcoming European housing strategy must confront these severe and persistent inequalities head-on. The new Plan offers an opportunity to strengthen the EU Roma Strategic Framework and respond to calls from the European Parliament and Council to ensure equal, non-segregated housing for Roma and to eradicate marginalised settlements by 2030.
Why vulnerable groups must be explicitly included?
What is not explicitly named often goes unaddressed. EURoma contribution stresses that the forthcoming European Affordable Housing Plan must explicitly acknowledge and include situations of extreme housing deprivation, such as Roma settlements, among its core priorities.
These forms of exclusion have persisted for decades and are frequently compounded by structural discrimination. The data collected by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) reveal alarming disparities: over 80% of Roma live in overcrowded conditions, nearly half face housing deprivation, and one in five Roma households lives without access to running water or faces environmental pollution. Discrimination remains widespread, with a quarter of Roma prevented from renting housing due to their ethnic background.
Such figures demonstrate that housing exclusion is not marginal, it is a systemic failure that demands structural, long-term solutions. The new EU Plan offers a unique opportunity to close the gap between existing policy commitments and the lived reality of the most vulnerable. By making these situations visible and prioritising them in policy design, Europe can move closer to ensuring the right to adequate housing for all.
EURoma Network’s proposals
A comprehensive set of proposals to ensure the Plan delivers meaningful change for those facing the most acute housing exclusion are outlined in the contribution. EURoma calls for a Plan that is inclusive, coordinated, and effectively financed, guided by the following principles:
- Explicit recognition of the most deprived situations and groups
The Plan should clearly identify and target the most severe housing situations, particularly substandard and segregated housing such as settlements, and the groups most affected, including Roma.
This recognition must be reflected across all components of the Plan: from needs assessment and policy design to implementation and monitoring. Specific measures should include:
- Rehousing programmes to support families moving out of settlements, backed by EU funds.
- Safeguards for equal access to social housing, including priority criteria for the most disadvantaged and desegregation principles to prevent the concentration of poverty.
- Anti-discrimination mechanisms, ensuring mediation services and access to housing are governed by equal treatment principles.
- Inclusion in green and digital transitions, guaranteeing that vulnerable households benefit from energy-efficiency and digital transformation measures without deepening inequality.
- Coherence and synergies with existing EU frameworks
The forthcoming Housing Plan should align with and reinforce existing EU initiatives—such as the EU Roma Strategic Framework (2020–2030), the EU Anti-Racism and Anti-Poverty Strategies, and the European Child Guarantee. EURoma urges that the Plan incorporate the EU Action Plan to Eradicate Roma Settlements by 2030, as requested by the European Parliament, to create strong synergies between housing investments and social inclusion objectives.
- Strategic use of EU funds
The alignment of the objectives of the EU Affordable Housing Plan and the current (2021-2027) and future (2028-2034) Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) is crucial to promote the use of the potential of the EU Funds in achieving the objectives of the Plan.
Evidence shows the key role that European Funds, notably ESF+ and ERDF, can play for social issues and social cohesion in general and to reduce disparities and inequalities in the different areas, including in the field of housing, by targeting the groups and situations of greater exclusion and vulnerability. In this sense, more efforts should be done to take full advantage of the (still underused) potential of ESF+ and ERDF (separately and in complementarity) in this field to address the challenges housing situation of most vulnerable groups as well as the persistent situations of extreme housing vulnerability and exclusion. This should be considered both for the current programming period as well as for the next Multiannual Financial Framework.
- Strengthened governance and local coordination
The contribution emphasises that effective housing policy requires close collaboration among all levels of governance, EU, national, regional, and local. Municipalities, which often bear direct responsibility for housing provision, must be empowered and equipped to implement desegregation measures and prevent evictions.
EURoma calls for structured dialogue mechanisms linking the European Commission, national authorities, and civil society organisations to design, implement, and monitor actions effectively.
- Mutual learning and exchange
Finally, EURoma highlights the importance of sharing knowledge and good practices among Member States. The Network itself will continue to act as a platform for mutual learning on how EU funds can best be leveraged to ensure affordable, decent, and non-segregated housing for all.
More information:
EURoma Network contribution to the European Affordable Housing Plan
