Housing Affordability in the Context of Covid-19 Pandemic – New Challenges for Romania

The world has changed rapidly in recent months as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on all areas of socio-economic life. The crisis directed, in a first phase, the efforts of the whole society in the direction of ensuring the public health, and later also towards the economic recovery by resuming the human activities. In this context, housing has been a point of stability and a starting point for all efforts, and access to adequate housing has proven its importance for ensuring the health and well-being of the population. The purpose of the research is to highlight a series of housing affordability problems pre-existent and new problems arising from the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the housing sector in Romania. The present research highlights pre-existing problems in the general picture of housing at the national level, how these issues condition access to adequate and affordable housing, the emergence of new risk groups in the population in terms of access to housing, highlights the impact of the pandemic on the ability of households to bear housing costs and proves that housing insecurity is exacerbated by the effects of the crisis. The analyzes used data provided by the National Institute of Statistics, Eurostat, the Quality of Life Research Institute as well as reports prepared by specialized European organizations.