Transnational Citizen Assembly for Housing Justice in Cluj – Romania
Desire Foundation organizes the Assembly for Housing Justice in Cluj within the TransEuropa Assemblies (TEA) project coordinated by European Alternatives. The project consists in a series of citizen assemblies across the continent to engage citizens in a deliberation of their priorities for the European elections in 2024.
Because one of the major problems that the inhabitants of Cluj are faced with is the cost of housing, the Assembly for Housing Justice will be focused on the housing crisis and housing justice. With this event, Desire Foundation aims to contribute to the efforts of the local housing movement Căși sociale ACUM!/ Social housing NOW! to raise awareness about the causes of housing affordability crisis and to mobilize the local communities to identify solutions and jointly struggle for their fulfillment.
The Assembly will gather activists/experts of the housing crisis and struggles and tenants of Cluj, mostly students and some young adult inhabitants of Pata Rât. The activists invited to our event are committed to social public housing and/or tenant organizing since the local housing movement from Cluj focuses mostly on these aspects of the housing question.
To participate in the event, please register here:
https://forms.gle/SFA5BhKXZ2YXmvNc9
PROGRAM
11 June 2023
Tranzit House
11.00–11.30: Opening the Assembly
The coordinators present the organizations involved into initiating the Assembly, its theme and aims. The event facilitators share with the participants the way how the event will progress during the day.
11.30–14.00: Introductory speeches about the manifestations of housing crisis and struggles in cities from Europe
(language: English with simultaneous Romanian translation)
The speeches will be held by four guests from abroad: Action Logement Bruxelles (Brussels), DAL – Droit Au Logement (Paris), Habita (Lisbon), Stop Evictions (Berlin) and three from Romania: The Common Front for Housing Rights (Bucharest), Social Housing NOW! and Desire (Cluj). [more details here]
During the introductory session, the participating local citizens are invited to take inspiration from the speakers and note the housing issues they experience, or answer the question: do I have the same issues as the speakers share? These ideas will be recorded on individual post-its provided by the organisers.
14.00–15.00: Lunch break
15.00–16.00: Work in small groups
(language: Romanian, person-to-person translation will be assured for the foreign guests)
The participants will be split into 7 groups (the invited guests, supported, in case, by translators, will join one of these groups and take care of organizing its activities). Each participant brings their individual post-it written in the introductory session to be used in the collective work.
The groups will discuss four questions:
– the housing problems in Cluj,
– the causes of these problems,
– proposed solutions,
– proposals for common actions: what should people do in Cluj together to solve these problems.
Each group will place their commonly developed ideas around the four questions on the group billboards. As a result, we will have 7 collective billboards to be used in the next session of the Assembly.
16.00–17.00: Sharing the group results in the Assembly
(language: Romanian with simultaneous English translation)
The working groups present to each other their ideas around the four addressed questions using the collective billboards. Each group will delegate a person to the committee that will make the concluding work for the last section of the event.
17.00–17.30: Coffee break
Meanwhile, the Working Groups Committee will compile together the answers to the four questions on the basis of the collective billboard materials, so a skeleton of the Cluj Manifesto for Housing Justice will result, developed around these four issues.
17.30–18.30: Concluding work in the Assembly
(language: Romanian with simultaneous English translation)
The Working Groups Committee will present to the whole Assembly a draft of the Cluj Manifesto for Housing Justice, structured under the four questions discussed by the citizens. All participants are invited to provide feedback on this draft, comments, additional thoughts, further ideas, which will be noted by the facilitators.
After the Assembly Day
The project staff, together with the facilitators will finalize the Cluj Manifesto for Housing Justice. A flyer will be produced with the text and will be distributed to the participants and around the city.
About the TEA project
TransEuropa Assemblies is a series of innovative citizens assemblies taking place in 7 countries, involving participants from over 15 countries in deliberation of their priorities for the European elections in 2024. These assemblies engage groups that are least likely to participate in the elections, including women, young people, racialised minorities including Roma and Sinti, unemployed people and people without further education. The assemblies have six themes: health rights, civil liberties, rights at work, environment, housing, and gender related rights. The recommendations will be used to influence the European election manifestos of the political parties, thereby working to at once Europeanise the elections and to make the elections more pertinent to the concerns of everyday citizens.
