Because city of Sofia does not provide municipal waste collection services, an unregulated dump developed next to the Roma settlement causing risk of accidents. In 2011 there was around much waste accumulated in the Roma neighbourhood [14]. Thus, a former green space of the Fakulteta neighbourhood - the part where the Roma community lives, is now used as a dump site for industrial waste, produced within the Sofia municipality [1] [2].

Roma regularly collect the waste as a source of livelihoods; and burn it especially in winter to warm up exposing themselves to toxic and carcinogens substances. In addition, in the Roma neighborhoods the Roma scavengers and carters quite often will burn car tyres and other mixed materials to extract the different kinds of metal, which contaminates the air they inhale. [5][13].

In July 2011, the UN Expert travelled to Fakulteta to assess the situation of the Roma, and expressed alarm at the general conditions witnessed in  the neighborhood. The report  found minimal evidence of a strong Government commitment to Roma equality and remains unconvinced that ensuring such equality is a high priority for the current Government [3]. "Roma have no running water, sewage, paved streets, waste collection or street lights", the expert stated.  [3]

Although the Roma of Fakulteta are taxpayers, the local administration has to date done little to improve waste collection, the electricity supply, the water supply and other facilities and infrastructire of the settlment. The electrical grid in Fakulteta is very old and there is a total capacity of only seven megawatts for the whole area [2].

In 2011 a discriminatory separation wall was planned to be build by local authorities and railway company "Railway Infrastructure" (NKZI), to "protect" trains from accumulated waste [14]. 

The Roma community still lives in crowded informal settlements with no water, sewage, electricity nor green spaces, and are surrounded by a waste dump that was chosen not to be collected exactly in the Roma part of the Fakulteta neighbourhood [1] [2] [3] [4]. 

In 2014 the inhabitants organised a protest calling on the authorities to take measures for legalising their homes, and respectively the neighbourhood [12].

10 years before the protest, in April 2004, the electricity grid suffered an accident in which an underground cable burned. The result was a power failure in part of the neighbourhood [11]. Also, the company supplying electricity in Fakulteta cut the power in many occasions for unpaid bills. That same year (2004) the Sofia District Court ruled against the Sofia electric company and found out such cuts were unlawful and discriminatory [10].

Despite the legal decision the Romani inhabitants continued to experience electricity cuts. In 2006 there was another firebreak,  due to electricity cut off in the Roma settlement, in which a Romani child died and one adult was injured.  The fire started from a little candle used for lighting the house and the entire home burned into flames [7]. The Roma remain to live under these conditions until today (2019).