Liz and her four children, including three minors, were evicted this Wednesday from their home located in the Madrid district of Vallecas. Despite the attempt to stop the neighborhood movement, which went to the scene early in the morning, the court ultimately continued the police action.
“It’s desperate, in the neighborhood there are several evictions every week and it seems that it has become a habit,” said one of the neighbors. This is the family’s third and final eviction attempt. In the previous one, made just ten days ago, Liz had to be treated by one of the police officers due to the pressure she was under because of what happened.
“It was much more dramatic. This is understandable, imagine being kicked out of your home where you are trying to build a life. “It’s devastating,” explains another neighbor present. The small apartment in which they had lived for more than a year, owned by Coral Homes and Caixa, had neither access to electricity nor water.
The police cordon was installed at number 30 Carlos Aurioles Street at 6 a.m., in anticipation of the action of the neighborhood which had organized the meeting an hour and a half later. “We usually allow time before the eviction time, but today they arrived earlier,” explains one of the members of the Platform of Persons Concerned by Mortgages (PAH) in front of the three vans which prevented the eviction. access to the street through all their entrances. .
About twenty people gathered around police tape waiting to receive the news they feared. “I think everyone is scared. Years ago all the neighbors came down to try to stop this, now there is almost no movement. Maybe because of reprisals, maybe because we’re sleepy, but things are only getting worse and, at this rate, we’re going to end up with evictions from rooms,” says a neighbor indignantly .
Liz and her four children will live in one of the hotels in Parla made available by the Red Cross for emergency situations. But this solution is exclusively temporary, because within six months they will again find themselves in the uncertainty of those who do not have a home. Thanks to negotiations led by the PAH, the mother was able, in tears and with the help of neighbors who were willing to use their own vehicle and social facilities, to remove the few belongings she had left in the house. mother at the transfer.
“Only one of the girls is 18 years old, the others are still in school and the expulsion only makes their lives much more complicated, in addition to the various traumas that can occur. What is shocking is now, but we also have to take into account what follows,” explains one of the neighbors who has been fighting for this cause for years.
“This happens all the time in the neighborhood, families are evicted to trade with houses and in many cases they spend empty years. The housing law does not work and the social complaint on rents does not prevent the daily drama: the evictions continue”, they explain from the platform in the face of the helplessness that we felt after the appeal filed was not didn’t arrive in time to stop the expulsion.
The morning did not have any incidents because the negotiators of the process asked those present, although the indignation was notable, to leave with caution so that in the event of eviction they could remove personal belongings from the family. “In other cases we made a fuss and they didn’t let us take things out of the house, we are going to be careful because the situation seems very ugly,” they said.
The evictions do not stop
Vallecas is one of the neighborhoods of Madrid that suffers more evictions As the weeks go by and even if the neighborhood movement did not succeed in stopping this one, we are already thinking about the next one. Pilar, one of the women who demonstrated this Wednesday in Calle Carlos Aurioles, will be the protagonist of the same thing next Friday, October 18. “The biggest tragedy is that it doesn’t stop, there are no days off. Today we come to try to arrest one, but the next one is around the corner and so on,” they explain from the PAH, which managed to arrest another in Vallecas less ago of a week.
In addition, from the platform they demand responsibilities from the government to have part of Caixa’s assets. “If a percentage of the entity is state-owned, it is incomprehensible that these kinds of events happen every week. We must protest against the lack of management in the face of a humanitarian tragedy like this and ask the residents of the neighborhood to mobilize,” explained one of the spokespersons because next week’s eviction also concerns bank housing. .
The six-month countdown began this Wednesday after Liz and her family were deported. After this period, your life will be on hold again because you will have no alternative in terms of housing.
