Căși sociale ACUM! is a grassroots civic-activist movement based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, working to advance social housing and housing justice. It began as an initiative within Fundația Desire, which launched the campaign on 4 May 2016 to bring attention to the shrinking public housing stock, the growing treatment of housing as a real-estate commodity, and barriers that prevent eligible people from accessing social housing.25
The movement’s work focuses on local housing policy and the right of low-income and marginalised residents to access adequate public housing and participate in decisions about the city. It advocates expanding public and social housing, providing sufficient public investment, and changing allocation practices so that people in the most precarious circumstances can access homes. It also supports alternative forms of collective housing.211
Its activities include public actions, petitions and legal advocacy, as well as publishing housing-focused material. The group works alongside local organisations and residents, including people affected by eviction and renters with low incomes; its publication Cărămida addresses housing rights and related experiences.7 In 2017, the campaign was among the initiators of Blocul pentru Locuire, a Romanian housing network, and it has also participated in European housing-rights cooperation.2712
The movement grew in the context of the forced relocation of Roma residents from Cluj’s Coastei Street to Pata Rât in 2010, an event described as a catalyst for housing-justice organising in the city.10 Enikő Vincze and George Iulian Zamfir are among the researchers and activists associated with the movement.13