WADE RATHKE is the founder of ACORN, Chief Organizer at ACORN International, and Author of "Nuts & Bolts", "Citizen Wealth", "Global Grassroots", and "The Battle for the 9th Ward".
Catania While the Organizers’ Forum was in Bucharest and Sofia, everyone talked about politics, but it was hard to get our arms around all of what we were hearing, despite in a rarity for our dialogues we had meetings with three journalists with experience in radio, print, and television, including in the public-state controlled …
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, …
Bucharest The Roma people constitute about 12% of the Romanian population with between 1.8 and 2.2 million people disbursed across the country, even though official census figures number only 600,000. Their minority status has led to intense discrimination in the region for hundreds of years. We were meeting with Alin Banu, the Executive Director …