A large number of Romani families do not own the land on which their houses are built and do not have building authorizations or proper property contracts for their houses. Many Romani communities are located near garbage dumps. In other places, walls or other physical barriers separate the Romani communities from the majority population. The houses may have been built illegally, the residents do not have clear legal status, or the electric company and local authorities failed to introduce electricity into the Romani area while providing it to nearby non-Romani dwellings. Local electric companies have installed antitheft devices in Romani, and only in Romani, neighhorhoods.
Buses often stop at the edge of Romani neighhorhoods.
Where there is puhlic transportation, the buses often do not run as frequently and are of lower quality than those that serve other neighhorhoods. Most garbage collection is less frequent in Romani neighhorhoods than in non-Romani areas. Public health prohlems arise frequently from insufficient solid waste disposal. In some Romani communities, people are forced to drink contaminated water, to share one source of water among dozens of families, or to travel considerable distances to reach the water source. The study concludes with a set of recommendations that call on the countries to develop and implement meaningful legislation to protect the Roma and other groups from public and private discrimination.