With the Roma making up just 2 percent to 3 percent of the country's population, it's still just possible to sweep their marginalization under the rug, even when the figures show a clear crisis that has barely changed since 1989. The rest of the country has been on a fast track to success that's unparalleled in history, but the Roma remain frozen in time, cut out of the booming economy. In the same way, the Chánov community, a collection of crumbling shells of 1970s-era panel apartments for the cikány, is cut off from Most. A freeway physically slices off this Third World–level slum so that it's not even possible to walk into the city, at least legally.

Thus no one except a handful of dedicated teachers and the occasional trash collector ever witnesses the community up close, where the dismal statistics become real sights, sounds and smells: An 85 percent unemployment rate translates into four old men employed collecting the trash of 2,000 residents. Routine school dropout problems clear out the clean, organized and disciplined classrooms when students reach adolescence. The alcoholism and drug abuse, the high incidence of preventable diseases, the domestic abuse and the far-higher-than-average crime rate is just as evident after five minutes of walking through this concrete jungle.

And the cycles of exclusion compound themselves, of course. Residents who couldn't hope to get a bank loan to repair or buy a flat or take a training course instead borrow from a local loan shark who does his rounds in a new black Mercedes, feeding on the hopes of those who want to improve their situation by ensnaring them into debt they'll never escape.

All of this, as far as Prague policy makers are concerned, shouldn't be happening. They've allocated millions of crowns for better housing, health standards, education and integration for impoverished Roma ghettos nationwide ... which continue to spread and worsen, with over 330 "socially isolated locations" now recorded.

So where's the breakdown?

Ask the local mayors, who are entrusted with the distribution of these national funds. These officials and their fellow city council members know very well that local voters would be outraged at seeing facilities and programs for Romany families appearing when non-Romany families are also out of work. Thus, if they want to hold on to their power, they'll generally divert the funds elsewhere.

That's why communities like Chánov, with the guidance of Labor and Social Affairs Ministry officials and NGOs from Prague, have turned to site-specific funding from the EU as their last hope. The process is tortuous — improvements for the dangerously neglected Roma housing in this area won't materialize before 2008, and might take as long as until 2013 to be implemented.

But at least they'll reach those they are intended for — and will do so without causing Most officials any uncomfortable confrontations at the pub.