THE PROBLEM OF STATELESSNESS IN UKRAINE AND THE WAYS OF ADDRESSING IT of the problem, the village mayor first of all decided to undertake an inventory of the local Roma’s houses and land plots. For that purpose, he established a working group including local council members. The working group undertook an inventory of the houses where Roma lived and held a census of the Roma in a very short time. It was found as a result of the census that most Roma had no Ukrainian passports or other identity papers. In view of the situation, it was decided to take measures aimed at facilitating the Roma’s access to passport issuance procedures. For that purpose, they invited a photographer to the village who photographed all the member of the Roma community and made their photos for Ukrainian passports in less than a week. Due to the assistance granted, 99% members of Roma national minority in Siurte received Ukrainian citizen passports in less than a year. According to the village mayor, only one member of Roma community in the village has no Ukrainian passport now. However, this person moved to the village recently. He has only one document – a Soviet-standard birth certificate. Arpad Ivanovych says he knows of a case of establishing citizenship of Ukraine through a court decision. For example, one woman, born in 1972, with three children, had to ascertain facts of their birth by judicial procedure, because the children had no birth certificates. Following that case, according to the village mayor, there were 5 more similar cases. As a result, all the cases on establishing Ukrainian citizenship succeeded. Addressing the problem of establishing citizenship of Ukraine of the Roma national minority members in Siurte village is a good practice example on the local level. III. 6 Homeless and stray persons Lack of identity documents and statelessness can also be found among homeless and stray persons. Stray persons are adult individuals living in the streets, parks, basements, house entrance halls, attics, unfinished buildings, in other places not designed and not suitable for living, including residential premises in disrepair22. The matter of connection between stray persons and the State are regulated by the Law of Ukraine on the Fundamentals of Social Protection of Homeless 22 Article 2 of the Law of Ukraine on the Fundamentals of Social Protection of Homeless Citizens and Stray Children, as reworded on 21 December 2010. 30