Sofia      It hasn’t been easy for the Organizers’ Forum to get our arms around housing issues in Sofia or Bucharest.  People agree that rents are going up, but that’s about all.

The numbers say that the percentage of homeowners vastly outnumbers tenants.  In Romania, there is claim of over 90% homeownership.  In Bulgaria, we heard it is perhaps 80% ownership to 20% tenants.  Googling the numbers seemed to confirm these impressions.  Was this something that was a holdover from the Communist era in each country?  Was ownership in rural areas throwing the numbers off in the cities?  How was this possible?

Talking to Ioana Florea of the Common Front for Housing Rights in Romania gave us a better handle on the situations.  She said the numbers obscured the fact that overcrowding was a huge issue, because often three generations of families lived in the same housing with whomever in the family had the title to the unit, because there was not enough available housing elsewhere.  The Front should know.  They are an all-volunteer organization, but they have fought evictions and advocated for tenants with landlords and the government.  In a piece Florea had co-authored, she wrote,

…the Ministry of Development estimated a need for about 63,000 more public social housing units nationwide, the stock of social housing has not increased since then. In Bucharest, despite circa 20,000 applicant households, years go by when public authorities do not allocate any social housing to those on the priority lists. In this context, where the need for housing support is high but remains unanswered by mainstream policy-makers, right-wing parties have increasingly emphasized this issue in their campaigns and popular promises. Their success in the November-December 2024 elections is largely due to them addressing socio-economic grievances such as the housing needs of low-to-middle income groups.

When one of our delegations asked about whether there was any kind of rent control or protection for tenants, the answer was pretty much a flat “No.”  There were really no leases nor security of tenure.  There were some different rules for five-unit complexes, but still not much.  The only bright note was that before tenants could be evicted, they could force landlords to have to get a court order in Bucharest.

In Sofia, rents were going up as well.  “According to the latest Eurostat data, Bulgaria ranks first in the EU in terms of housing price increases in the last quarter of 2024. Prices jumped by a whopping 18.3% year-on-year – the highest increase among all member states. Compared to the previous quarter alone, the increase was 2.7%.” One person mentioned increased pressure from rising utility rates as well, while another thought those increases were more modest.  Research indicates that,

Sofia, Bulgaria faces severe housing issues, primarily rising property prices and a significant lack of affordable and social housing, exacerbated by a shrinking municipal housing stock and a lack of a comprehensive strategy. These factors make housing increasingly unaffordable for low-income families and young people, who face high rents that consume much of their income. The city is exploring potential solutions such as public-private partnerships, streamlining building permits, and developing a long-term social housing plan, but these efforts are challenged by the scale of the problem and the influx of migrants and refugees.

The conservative pressure on “family values” themes on housing and on care for the sick and elderly also is a factor, as right-wing parties try to block modernization in the name of keeping families together.

Talking to activists across the political spectrum, there seemed not to be an active tenants’ organization in Sofia at this time.  The Common Front in Romania needs support, and there’s a vacuum in Sofia in this area that needs to be filled.