by Jonathan Reckford
About a year ago, I visited a Roma slum in Bucharest, Romania. I can hardly imagine living conditions any more desperate than those I encountered there. Families were living in deteriorating communist-era apartment blocks with no electricity and no running water to drink or to cook and bathe with. Outside, garbage piled up like snow drifts across the grassless grounds of the complex.
In the photo essay "Reaching the Roma," Habitat for Humanity photographer Steffan Hacker captures some of the hardship I've attempted to describe above. As in every other part of the planet, the housing need in Europe can be staggering, the poverty intense, deeply entrenched and multi-layered.
Its scope--like that of the housing need worldwide--requires that we respond faster, more proportionately. Across the globe, Habitat is augmenting its traditional house-building model with tactics that are sound, mission-based and culturally appropriate. In Romania and other parts of Europe, for example, empty apartment buildings--abandoned relics of the communist era--present a perfect opportunity for us to create more decent housing opportunities with families who so urgently need them.
As you'll read in Shala Carlson's story "Rising From Ruins," Habitat has begun renovating and repairing these apartments in places like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and in communities like Oarja, Romania, where the Angelescu family lives.
Prior to moving into their newly renovated Habitat home, Nicolae, his wife Ioana- Mariana and their young daughter Alexandra-Gabriela had lived in a small, cold, damp apartment. Alexandra-Gabriela twice contracted pneumonia there.
Today, they live modestly in a clean, warm Habitat apartment, paying a monthly mortgage one-quarter of what they used to pay in rent and occupying a space five times as large.
They've worked hard with Habitat in Romania to build a better way in a better home. Habitat's model relies on that kind of investment from families. It relies on investment from so many of us. The more time, effort and resources we contribute, the greater the returns we can yield--returns of hope, promise and lasting change.
We can't and won't tolerate conditions like those I encountered in Bucharest. With a hammer in hand, or a trowel or a checkbook, we'll create more and more housing opportunities in relationship with one another--and with families committed to overcoming their housing hardships, in Romania or anywhere else on the planet.
Thank you for your own hand in the effort.
