Indicator history

The Roma case received the attention of the reports by various international human rights’institutions, as well as of the Greek Ombudsman, who in August 2009 published a special report after many years of investigations about the settlement of the civil, municipal status and registration of Roma as an underlying cause of their precarious housing conditions and the limited impact of housing policies.¹ As the ombudsman noted individuals who cannot provide evidence of their municipal status and ‘permanent residence’ in a municipality are blocked from accessing the government housing program of state guaranteed low or non interest loans. ‘This illustrates the contradiction inherent in the system which it sets out to assist those in need of housing it pushes to the margins those people that actually need this assistance.’