Elvira arrived from Peru last March with her two daughters at the Txirbilenea cultural center in Sestao. Carmen did it in April, accompanied by her daughter. Azuzena, her husband and two children arrived in October. And Celia, from Argentina, on November 2. The list of people who have passed through the self-managed cultural center created last year in the former offices of the Altos Hornos de Vizcaya (Apprentice School), now abandoned, reaches 36 people, all migrants who work in the Basque Country homes as interns. Some stay for months; others, days, because they know that their stay in Txirbilenea is temporary, but for them it represents alternative accommodation due to the difficulty of finding accommodation as foreigners and the “slavery” that means being boarders in the houses in which they live. they work.
“Many women who pass through here are doctors, nurses or teachers, but in the Basque Country, they dedicate themselves to caring for dependent people. This is a permitted waste of talent due to immigration law. When they arrive at these homes, many do so as detainees and realize the slavery of life there. This is why we created this alternative in which we organize ourselves. It is a place where internal workers break the silences, live and celebrate that we exist,” explains to this newspaper María, member of Emakume Migratu Feministak Sociosanitaires Soignantes, the association that these workers created and with which they have been protesting ever since. that they learned that the municipal council had ordered the evacuation of the facilities.
Currently, nine people live in the cultural center, including a small child. While the workers gather to demand that the Town Hall continue to let them live there, the little boy plays with his father. On the first floor, where they live, there are toys, puzzles, stuffed animals and even a bicycle. “Here, the children are doing well, while their mothers work, those who stay take care of them, pick them up from school or feed them until they return. We organize ourselves very well,” explains María as she passes a sign reading: “Community. Whatever people donate will be distributed equally among all housing units. The community thinks of others.
They have a room with sofas where they rest and another with desks and a board where they organize assemblies and carry out training and courses. They have also been organizing concerts and social and cultural activities for over ten years. “Those of us who live in Txirbilenea are women and families who, because we find ourselves in an irregular administrative situation, due to urgent need or real estate racism, need a place to rest after work or to live temporarily. We know that access to housing is very difficult, especially when it comes to migrants. It is a constant search that ultimately destroys our mental and physical health. Institutional racism wants to expel us without calling us to the table,” they lament.
The Sestao City Hall informs elDiario.es/Euskadi that the eviction is taking place due to the poor condition of the facilities. “Administrative procedures have been initiated to release the building of the former Altos Hornos de Vizcaya apprenticeship school because it is in a dangerous state of conservation totally incompatible with its use by people, as concluded by the technical services municipal.
“After visiting the property, the technical services issued a report in which they warn of the deficiencies they noted and which pose a significant risk to the safety of people, which is why they are opposed to the presence of people inside In this sense, they recall that the building was built in the 40s of the last century and that it ceased to have activity in the 90s, now falling into a situation. gradual abandonment. reason for preventing people from going to the learning school is that there are no measures for protection against fires, nor for their possible evacuation”. On this subject, they also warn of the presence of a large number of objects which were introduced by the occupants into the building, which further aggravates the situation of insecurity”, indicate sources from the Consistory.
The Town Hall goes on to explain that “we cannot guarantee that there will be constant releases of materials in any part of the building, both outside and inside, which end up affecting people which are there. “The Town Hall had to install a visor outside the building to prevent debris from falling on pedestrians. The elevator shafts are not protected, handrails are missing in areas with height differences greater than 50 centimeters, there is a lack of continuity in the sidewalk, glass is missing in many windows and there is glass and other materials dislodged to the ground. “, they emphasize.
From the cultural center, they indicate that “the fault for the deterioration of the building lies with its managers”, on December 15, 2022, the property became municipal property after the Town Hall and the company ArcelorMittal signed the deed of transfer of the property . “The fault for the deterioration of the building lies with the managers from the 90s until our arrival. This building was in dust, full of garbage and with our arms, our strength and our fight, we emptied it and adapted it,” they lament.
“We are not refusing to let them repair the building. Any arrangements they need to make need to be made, but with us inside. We will provide all the facilities in the world, but not leave women and their families on the street or under a bridge. They should not throw them out and then say that they are going to activate the social service protocols because they have known for months that they are there,” they emphasize.
To do this, in addition to the fact that the Town Hall makes the necessary improvements inside, it publishes “a municipal decree by which the municipality is free from real estate abuse and racism. “We want to put an end to the sale of records, speculation and abuse in subletting and room rentals,” they explain. As they admit, some of them have witnessed and been victims of this type of practice, such as the sale “for up to 200 euros” of a register in a house in which the person no longer lives there. “There are houses where you live and they don’t let you register, so you have to buy it from another person who lets you register with them, but can’t live there. “It’s double rent that we are forced to pay,” they denounce.
They also ask that the City Hall carry out a census of all domestic workers in Sestao so that the situation in which they work is known. “In our organization we are fighting for the eradication of domestic work, which is why, as an alternative to leaving this slave work, we have launched, with Txirbilenea, these temporary community housing. We tried dialogue, but we saw that they ignored us and the only thing they did in response was to send us to the police to identify us,” the workers lament.
According to City Hall sources, we learned “in recent days” that “people in vulnerable situations live in the Apprentice School building”. “Given this observation, the Town Hall suggested that they contact municipal social services in order to study each specific case and see what social resources can be made available to them.”
To which the workers criticize the fact that the institutions want to “separate and disorganize them”. “We are organized and in a group. We take care of each other and we want to continue to do so. So it makes no sense to separate us in shelters, let alone separate mothers from their children. The only alternative is that they let us stay here,” they conclude after hundreds of people came out this Saturday to demonstrate against the closure and eviction of Txirbilenea, which should take place this week.
The objective of the Town Hall after the expulsion is, thanks to a grant of 3 million euros from the European Next Generation fund, to contract “an energy rehabilitation project for the Apprentice School which will be followed by the execution of works”. “Soon, tastings will be carried out on the structure to obtain information on the condition of the building with a view to developing the said rehabilitation project. Alongside this process, the government team continues to have conversations with different public institutions to assess their interest in participating in the rehabilitation of the building,” concludes the Town Hall.
