Housing for all: the struggle continues!
Emmaus International has always been involved in fighting for the right and access to decent housing and it continues to pursue the fight led by Abbé Pierre by supporting a number of housing projects run by Emmaus groups around the world. In response to the call for action on 27 and 28 March launched by a European coalition on the right to housing and to the city, we present an initiative carried out by the Emmaus group Satu Mare in Romania which promotes access to housing for disadvantaged young people.
The Satu Mare group in Romania set up a community fund for access to housing to help disadvantaged young people that it supports and who are unable to live in dignified conditions outside the Emmaus community system.
Jointly funded by the Abbé Pierre Foundation and Emmaus Europe, and supplemented by numerous donations of items from French Emmaus groups, this fund has enabled them to purchase and renovate several individual flats in the city. This approach offers young people the possibility of accessing property, after often unstable backgrounds living in orphanages, squats, etc. They also become involved in building their own house and as such receive training in the building trades.
As Abbé Pierre wrote in 1955, “whether we rejoice or deplore it, whether we recognise it or refuse to see it, [the war on housing] has been declared. Nothing will be able to stop it .” As long as political choices push millions of people into total destitution and precariousness, Emmaus International will continue to fight for the fundamental right of access to housing!
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Find out more about the call for action launched by the European coalition (with over 30 associations and collectives in 23 European countries) on 27 and 28 March: https://housingnotprofit.org/housing-action-day/
Find out more about the actions carried out by the Satu Mare group: http://actemmaus.org/fr/project/show/62
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1 https://www.emmaus-international.org/en/our-heritage/straight-to-the-source/2359-the-housing-war-1955.html
