We have also sent an input to the call of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing about “COVID-19 and the right to housing”. Our report is entitled: ❗”HUMANITARIAN, ECOLOGICAL AND HOUSING CRISIS IN THE PATA RÂT AREA OF CLUJ-NAPOCA, ROMANIA” ❗
The Report is structured in five parts: 1) Introduction – Pata Rât of Cluj-Napoca in the context of Covid-19 pandemic; 2) A general overview of the “residential areas” in Pata Rât, Cluj-Napoca; 3) The old and new landfills of Pata Rât, Cluj-Napoca; 4) Demands formulated during the pandemic and the insufficient measures taken by the authorities; 5) Conclusions – the need for policies addressing the structural causes of housing deprivation in Pata Rât, including (environmental) racism and housing politics.
We identified the following concrete measures that might put an end to the humanitarian and housing crisis in Pata Rât:
▶People have to be urgently rehoused from the polluted, marginalized and stigmatized area of Pata Rât into proper social homes from the city, which would assure that now and in future, they will be protected against any other similar threats.
▶Proper social measures and a decent guaranteed minimum income should complete this desired housing intervention to ensure its sustainability.
▶Further actions would be also needed to legally ban and always prevent evictions that could leave people without adequate alternative housing.
Our general conclusion is: All the necessary measures targeting people living nowadays in Pata Rât should be conceived as part of a larger local and national housing politics that could produce a proper stock of public housing put under the democratic control of the tenants. Only such a politics might function as a means of assuring the right to housing as a universal right while prioritizing the access to adequate and financially affordable housing and utilities of the low-income and most deprived people.
?You may download our report from this page, too, at its bottom, under the section:
Inputs received < Social society organizations.
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/callCovid19.aspx 
Report-to-UN-SRHousing_Pata-Rat_June2020-FINAL
