Sanyi lived with his wife, Edina, and their 6-year-old son, Maxim, in a village close to the Hungarian border. He was a car mechanic, and Edina used to work as a pharmacist. During the first night of the war, Sanyi saw people fleeing and asked his wife to take their son and leave Ukraine the very next day. He had to finish repairing a couple of cars before joining them and managed to follow his family three days later. Since he holds both Ukrainian and Hungarian citizenship, he was allowed to leave the country, unlike other Ukrainian adult men. His family was waiting for him at a small village nearby.

“When I crossed the border, everyone was ready to help. Three volunteers came to me simultaneously and immediately asked what I needed: food, transfer, anything. It was incredible. I was so touched – says Sanyi, who missed his wife and son very much – We have never spent time apart.”

At first, the family planned to stay in Hungary only for a couple of days. However, as the war raged on, they realized after a few weeks that they needed to start a new life here. In early March, they met Tamás Szabó, a priest at the local Catholic church. With his help, Sanyi started working for Caritas Hungarica. Later, with the support of the same organization, they secured a long-term rental in Nyíregyháza, and Edina found a job as translator in a local school, helping refugee children from Ukraine. 

Their son, Maxim, went to school, but the first month was difficult for him. He didn’t understand what was happening and had difficulties getting used to the new environment. He cried a lot and wanted to go home. With time things got better. The little boy considers himself a citizen of Nyíregyháza now and the family is successfully adjusting to the new situation.

“We were fortunate because we got so much help early on, and we spoke Hungarian. We have a job, and we look ahead to the future. However, we often think of going back home. We are homesick. I miss the Tisza riverbank very much,” concludes Sanyi.

His sister Sonia, 3, was born healthy, but over time the family noticed a developmental delay. Sonia is disabled and has a condition of involuntary eye movement.

“As a mother, I felt that something was wrong with my child in the first hours of her life, but later it became obvious. Special motherhood is a very serious test for mothers,” shares Kateryna.

Sonia underwent expensive tests, treatments and rehabilitation. The family spent all their savings on the child’s therapy. Many of their dreams and plans had to be put on hold. But despite everything, they did not give up and the results are there: Sonia started walking at the age of 3 years and 2 months. She does not speak yet, but she is already saying simple words. She understands everything and is a very polite and calm little girl.

“Sonia, despite the pain she went through, has incredibly good energy, some kind of inner extraordinary harmony! With the arrival of my daughter in my life, I learned to find in myself extraordinary reserves of strength. Because I cannot give up if she is suffering. I want, and need, to do everything for her to have a happy life.” adds Kateryna.

The family had to evacuate and leave everything they had behind. Their village has been destroyed and right now there is nothing to return to. The last three days before leaving were extremely difficult. The family spent two days in the basement. There was constant shelling.

“More than the shelling I was afraid for my sister. Sonia was very scared and cried all the time,” says Artur.

The family arrived in Poland on March 18 and reunited with friends who have been living in the country for over seven years now.

“As long as life goes on – hope remains! I believe that someday I will return to my hometown, see my family and friends again,” says Kateryna, full of emotion.

The family learned about Habitat for Humanity from a Polish woman who hosted Kateryna’s friend at her home. Habitat provided them with a cozy apartment with a small garden, where the children play in the summer. There is a school, stores and, most importantly, a clinic nearby.

“I am very grateful for this help! I don’t know what we would have done without it. I accepted the help with the thought that once we overcome our difficulties, I will do everything to help more people,” notes Kateryna.

This year’s Christmas will be very difficult for the family, without relatives and friends with whom they have always celebrated this special time.

“For me, Christmas is a family holiday. We’ve always spent Christmas with our dear ones. But I am very happy that everyone is alive and well. I dream that we will get together soon,” concludes Kateryna.

According to estimations by experts, approximately 100-130 thousand apartments would need to be refurbished each year in order to modernize the building stock, whilst the actual yearly renovation rate is far lower in Hungary, representing less than 3% in case of shallow renovations, less than 1% medium renovations (resulting in 30-60% energy savings) and approximately 0.1-0.2% deep renovations (resulting in more than 60% energy savings) (Szórádi, 2020).

The other problem is that in most cases energy renovations are carried out reactively, without a technical plan and without the involvement of experts, usually after something breaks down. The consequence is frequently that no significant improvement in energy efficiency is achieved. Suboptimal solutions are carried out, which do not exploit the potential of a certain building for energy savings and thus lock it in higher energy consumption for decades (lock-in effect). It is therefore necessary to change renovation habits and to encourage renovators towards complex renovations based on technical designs that exploit energy saving potentials (Illésné Szécsi et al., 2021).

This realization led to the creation of the RenoHUb project, which aims to stimulate a renovation wave and help renovators maximize the savings potential of their property. RenoPont, a one-stop-shop advisory network supporting the energy renovation of residential buildings, was established following other one-stop-shop models successfully operating in several European countries.

A series of background studies were carried out to understand the needs of homeowners who want to energy renovate their flat or house and how to help them most effectively. The results showed that the main motivations for renovators are aesthetics and comfort and that renovating an average family home can increase its market value by 20%.

The project started in November 2019 and is being currently implemented under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program, though the service is aimed to be self-sustained by April 2023, which is the end of the project period, thus contributing to a more environmentally and socially sustainable future in a profitable way.

Read more about RenoHUB and other on-the-ground initiatives towards Just Energy Transition in the latest REE Observatory publication ‘Rethinking energy efficiency in time of an energy crisis’.

Arpad and his wife Klara signed up as a host family through the solidarity accommodation program.
“When our relatives found out about our plan to offer a solidarity rental, they became concerned. They listed all the arguments against it.” However, Arpad and Klara are not worried about any potential damages or losses. He says, “If you feel the urge to help, you should find a way that works best for you. You should only give as much as you can.”

“Everything happened so fast. A couple of days after we applied, the program operators reached out to us. There was a mom and her 17-year-old daughter who were looking for a place to live in Budapest for a few months.”

At that time, the couple was still renovating the second apartment that they bought a few months ago. The renovations could not be completed by the time a woman from Ukraine and her teenage daughter moved in in mid-March. But Arpad still managed to paint the walls.

The refugee family came from eastern Ukraine, close to the Russian border in an area that is badly affected by the armed conflict. Both the mother and daughter are quiet and keep their distance.

Ensuring privacy and dignity

“The family plans to settle in for the long term, they do not want to leave Budapest. They have started to look for jobs; the mother now works as a cleaner in a school. We live in the same building, but we do not talk or meet often. In my opinion, when I provide accommodation for a family, I also need to ensure their privacy. In the beginning, we brought them a couple of things, but it made them rather uncomfortable.  We want to respect their boundary and let them keep their dignity. I feel it is better to give them space.”

If we will be able to provide further accommodation to the family after the contract expires, of course we will do so. If not, we will help them to find another one. Also, we do not mind if anything will be slightly damaged in the flat by the time they move out. We think it is more important to make sure these families do not have to spend weeks or months on the street. Especially those who came from a war zone and experienced such horrible things.”

Share the good things

According to Arpad, a priest once told him, “Should you get any good, share it with others. Should you get any bad, keep it to yourself and turn it into something good.”

“I try to live my life by this principle. If there is anything I can give to someone, I will not keep it to myself. I would rather give it to someone in greater need. Of course, we could use the income from renting the apartment. But comparing our needs to this family’s, we would happily give up that money for a while,” says Arpad.

In an effort to maintain peace and force Roma families to assimilate, authorities tried to enforce a 60:40% rule whereby the ethnic majority and Roma minority would live side by side. The methodology was set up for failure from the beginning as the authorities allocated flats to Roma families haphazardly, without understanding or taking into account social rivalry and tensions amongst the various Roma groups. As a result, extended families were separated from each other, and enemies ended up becoming neighbors. Sometimes most basic interactions, even crossing the street at the same time, would cause fight to break out. As the area’s troubling reputation grew, other ethnic groups gradually moved away. This, along with growing racism towards Roma groups, paved the way towards full segregation and the ensuing neglect of the area.

The emergences of the Roma slum

The segregation was seen at all levels in the society. Out of the two nurseries in the district, one was restricted to Roma children only. And while older children attended schools in different parts of the city, an elementary school solely for Roma children opened in 1983. The original capacity of the school, capped at 300 students, was exceeded more than twice in 1999/2000 forcing the school to run two shifts.

Unofficial estimates suggest that at some point, Lunik IX housed more than 11,000 people; sometimes cramming 30-40 people in three or four-room flats. Overcrowding in living spaces and poor hygiene have also caused numerous epidemic outbreaks from head lice to hepatitis. The overcrowded setting is made more bleak by an unemployment rate that surpasses 90%.

Authorities contributed to further degeneration of the ghetto when it was decided to move people in debt, homeless and other problematic citizens to the Lunik IX district. Unpaid energy, utilities, and garbage collection bills rose to thousands of euros. In 2008, authorities carried out remediation of the first two apartment buildings due to structural damage, and several others followed later.

Pope Francis visits Lunik IX

During his papal visit to Slovakia in 2021, Pope Francis included a visit to Lunik IX, bringing the state authorities, local municipalities and media attention to the marginalization and poverty of the Roma population.

Preparations for his visit included clearing piles of garbage around apartment buildings that had reached in height the first floor and multiple reconstructions of roads and pavements. Artists painted a mural on one of the apartment buildings featuring drawings of flowers that grow between the cracks in walls, collected by the children in the ghetto: symbolizing that beauty and tenacity find their way even in difficult conditions.

A beam of hope

In 2021, a partnership between the municipality, private sector, and NGOs kickstarted a project enabling construction of family houses in Lunik IX. The project resulted in the completion of a community center, which includes a space dedicated to activities for children and families.

Shortly after the opening of the community center, the first Roma family started building their new home. With support of Habitat for Humanity, ETP Slovakia, a local nonprofit organization, runs the community center and provides supervision, consultations and legal advice, as well as microloans for home improvements. Other partners, such as Wienerberger Slovakia, have provided donation of construction materials such as bricks, bringing down the overall building expenses by half.

Skepticism towards the project amongst the community has quickly shifted and more families have expressed interest in microloans. If families meet the selection criteria, enroll in financial literacy training and successfully set aside money for more than one year, more families will be enabled to self-build a decent place to live.