Decent Home, Secure Future: National Forum Highlights Urgent Need for Action on Housing and Child Rights
On 17 March 2026 in Sofia, the Joint European Union and Council of Europe Programme ROMACT – Building Capacity for Roma Inclusion at the Local Level hosted the National Forum “Decent Home, Secure Future: Housing Conditions as a Key Determinant of Child Rights.” As the closing event of the ROMACT programme in Bulgaria, the Forum highlighted both progress made and the reforms that are still needed.
Many children grow up in overcrowded, unsafe, or informal homes, which limits their access to education, healthcare, and a dignified childhood. As the event report notes, this situation stems from “long-standing structural exclusion, weak implementation of legal safeguards, and fragmented institutional responses.”
Speakers and participants comprising national and local authorities, civil society, international partners, and Roma community representatives stressed that housing insecurity is a systemic issue that directly undermines children’s rights and underlined that adequate housing is the foundation for all other rights. Without a stable home, children cannot fully benefit from public services or develop their potential. Municipal representatives and experts also highlighted the challenges created by unregulated neighbourhoods, the lack of legal pathways for regularising long‑standing homes, and the limited scale of social housing.
A recurring theme was institutional fragmentation. Ministries and agencies work in parallel rather than in coordination, leaving municipalities to manage crises such as evictions without the tools to prevent harm to children.
The Forum concluded with six key recommendations / call for actions:
- introduce legal mechanisms to address informal housing;
- embed enforceable safeguards in eviction procedures;
- develop integrated, cross‑sectoral policy frameworks;
- expand access to housing support, including rental assistance;
- map households on a case-by-case basis at municipal level to enable preventive action;
- tackle discrimination as a root cause of housing exclusion.
For more information and the recommendations of the event, please see the key takeaways report and the summary.
