NO to Housing Injustice!
NO to Forced Evictions!
NO to Racism and Police Brutality!
Over 100 people living in a yard of houses on 50 Vulturilor Street, Bucharest, Romania, were forcefully evicted on Monday, September 15. The community has decided from the outset to protest and reclaim their rights. This fundamental right has been gravely violated when local police brutalized several members of the community on the 15th and the 16th of September. Among those targeted were children, elderly persons and persons with disabilities. The evicted have currently no genuine alternatives for relocation. They consider the treatment of officials a blunt breakage of their rights and a racist act given that most of the evictees identify as Roma So far 50 Romanian organizations joined the solidarity network progressively built with the evicted community on Vulturilor Street, either by asking local authorities to find immediately an adequate housing solution or by helping the people resist and organize in the street. The community is determined to keep protesting until their demands are met and the housing issue becomes a priority for the state and local authorities!
The Vulturilor Resistance Camp is not an exceptional case, as thousands have been evicted in similar conditions in the last 10 years. This protest, however, carries the important message of NO MORE! People of various social, cultural and economical backgrounds are coming together in support of the camp for what might become a social movement for housing rights! Already, other groups of evictees in other parts of the city have showed concrete solidarity by coming to the camp and enabling resources for the resistance.
We call for support and solidarity from all over the world!
If you think housing rights are not to be messed with, we ask you to join as well, expressing your solidarity!
HOW?
1. Share the story within your activist network!
2. Make a photo or video with a banner showing support for the Vulturilor Resistance Camp!
3. Protest in front of your local Romanian Embassy! Say NO to social and housing injustice enforced by racism, criminalization of the precarious and the sanctity of property!
4. Contribute with resources, financial or otherwise! Contact the Common Front for Housing Rights at [email protected].
Detailed account of the case
The land corresponding to Vulturilor 50, with an approximate surface of 2300 square meters, was returned in July 2002 to former (before socialist nationalisation in 50’s) owners, on the basis of restitution law 10/2001. In 2002, the owners concluded lease contracts with all former state tenants living in the houses, in accordance with the provisions of Government Emergency Decision 40/1999 concerning the protection of tenants. The new lease contracts were concluded for a period of 5 years. In 2007, the owners sold the land and the litigation rights to the consultancy firm SC New Bridge Partners SRL, managed by a Norwegian citizen. In 2008, the firm brought eviction suits against the tenants. It won in 2009 with the court ordering the eviction of the tenants. The decision was not contested by the latter owing to their lack of any kind of legal expertise and the insufficient funds for hiring a lawyer.
Most of the tenants have been living in the Vulturilor yard for 20 years, having been assigned there in the beginning of the 1990s by the state companies for which they worked. Since the 2009 expiry of the new contracts concluded with the owners and up to now, the tenants have been living in those homes without legal documents. Not having the possibility of renting or buying apartments on the market, the majority continued to live in the houses from which they had been told they were going to be evicted.
The requests for social housing, submitted to the district city hall and renewed throughout the 12 years since the restitution of the land, were left unsolved. The requests submitted to the capital (central) city hall were redirected to the city hall of District 3. The tenants began receiving walking summons in 2011. They continued to live in the houses in the absence of an alternative for living spaces and abandoned by local authorities. The new owners limited their proceedings to those summons and did not approach them formally for several years.
The FCDL (Common Front for Rights to Housing) contacted the people living in the yard in July 2014: „We are waiting in fear that they will come one day and kick us out. For two years we’ve been packing things in the house, around Easter, that’s when the rumor always came, that they are coming to chuck us out. And for us there was no Easter! I would complain to the girls at work about where was I going to get bags to collect our things because they were throwing us out. Where should we go? We are not going in the street. Because I’ve got nowhere to go. Who is going to take me, with 7 children and 2 nephews? Where am I to go? My daughter works there with me, she’s on maternity leave, the son works occasionally, sometimes he has work, sometimes there isn’t any.”
On the morning of September 2nd 2014, all the families received, besides the summons to leave the houses no later than 8 days, a notification about the forceful eviction in case of non-compliance, scheduled for September 15, 9:00 am.
On Monday, Sept 15 the community on Vulturilor street has been evicted against their will by court officers assisted by riot police. Forcing their way in the courtyard and hitting several protesters, the riot police flooded the homes and continued to insult ant intimidate the people into leaving. By way of threatenings, the people at Vulturilor 50 were forced to sign the eviction papers. The local authorities, present through one employee communicated that the evicted were expected to relocate, separately, to men’s and mother-and-children night shelters, a provisional solution which they refused.
Starting with 2 pm, people at Vulturilor were gradually emptiing their former homes. This process did not finished when the security firm employed to guard over the propriety showed up. They threatened to attack the people if they would not comply with leaving the premises. Next, the guards sealed the gate and started destroying the improvements made by the former residents. A lot of the belongings remained in the houses, only to be destroyed and confiscated by the security firm.
On Sept 16, at 9:00 o’clock, after a first night spent in the street in front of their former homes, part of the community on Vulturilor 50 set out to protest in front Bucharest’s City Hall. Equipped with signs, banners, and megaphones, people demanded their rights: homes for everyone. For several hours, people demanded that the mayor or other relevant authorities show up, but their demands have been completely ignored. Around 12 o’clock, while part of the evicted community was protesting in front the City Hall, the Local Police showed up on Vulturilor with 7 vehicles, 2 vans belonging to the military police (Gendarmerie), and 5 trucks from Rosal (garbage collecting company), to collect the possessions people were storing on the street, under the claim that they obstruct public space. People opposed this action, saying that that was their camp, set up for shelter and protest. Still, people’s furniture and other belongings were taken by force and moved to Rosal’s warehouses, against their owners’ wish. They will be kept there for 15 days, then they will be thrown away unless the owners reclaim them. But where are people going to take them?
While opposing eviction and, later, confiscation, several people were pushed and hit by employees of the Local Police. The victims included children and teenagers. One of the children was also insulted by a member of the Local Police.
Under threats of beatings and more confiscations, the street was eventually mostly cleared. But the community stayed, people being determined to maintain the camp, despite cold weather and lack of supplies. Children, young people, and ill people spent their night on chairs, blankets, mattresses, and sleeping bags, in the wind. More than half of the community spends both nights and days in the street, with no possibility for shelter.
On the following days, people are completing and updating their files for social housing. The authorities keep refusing to engage with the people hoping that they will become divided and eventually abandon the protest and their demands. But all the intimidation attempts by the police, since the eviction day and up to today, were unsuccessful. The community on Vulturilor is not giving up and is resolute to continue resisting until its demands are met. It is appealing to the solidarity of anyone who sees housing rights as fundamental !
On Friday, 19.09, the community protested in front of the City Hall again. Once more, their demands were ignored. The protesters were eventually dispersed by the police. Later that day, the police showed up at the camp, telling people that the remaining of their belongings (mostly mattresses & chairs) will be confiscated again, unless they agree to store it “out of sight” during the day and only take it out at night. As the police came together with a Rosal truck, this was not so much a negotiation as it was an ultimatum.
Each time the evicted protested in front of the city hall, the local police force showed up intimidating the community on Vulturilor. People are getting punished for resisting their exclusion, the social cleansing and the racist policies. We’re calling activists and social movements worldwide to show solidarity for housing rights of the people on Vulturilor street in Bucharest, against the police brutality and intimidation inflicted upon this community.
Since the 20th, the Vulturilor community has raised a protest camp to resist hard weather conditions, determined not to abandon the struggle. Seeking justice for their loss, the community demands housing justice having in mind the amplitude of the phenomenon in the Romanian context. The authorities cannot keep ignoring thousands of evictees and people with housing issues.
This account is only one example of many, considering that Romanian local authorities have no concern or respect for housing rights. As a matter of fact, the Third District City Hall allocated in the last 9 years only 33 social houses, while currently they have 3150 such requests registered.
The community is determined to keep protesting until their demands are met and the housing issue becomes a priority for the state and local authorities!
So far 50 Romanian organizations joined the solidarity network progressively built with the evicted community on Vulturilor Street, either by asking local authorities to find immediately an adequate housing solution or by helping the people resist and organize in the street.
Both the Vulturilor community and the solidarity coalition
call for immediate support!
Report compiled by the Common Front for Housing Rights (Frontul Comun pentru Dreptul la Locuire), fcdl.ro. and the community of Vulturilor 50.
Get back to us at [email protected]. 25.09.2014
]]>For several hours, people demanded that the mayor or other relevant authorities show up, but their demands have been completely ignored. Eventually, a few civil servants from AFL (the Administration of Housing Funds) and DSL (Housing Space Division) showed up, but, being in no position of power in this situation, all they could do was express their personal sympathy.
Around 12 o’clock, while part of the evicted community was protesting in front the City Hall, the Local Police showed up on Vulturilor with 7 vehicles, 2 vans belonging to the military police (Gendarmerie), and 5 trucks from Rosal (garbage collecting company), to collect the possessions people were storing on the street, under the claim that they obstruct public space. People opposed this action, saying that that was their camp, set up for shelter and protest. Still, people’s furniture and other belongings were taken by force and moved to Rosal’s warehouses, against their owners’ wish. They will be kept there for 15 days, then they will be thrown away unless the owners reclaim them. But where are people going to take them?
While opposing eviction and, later, confiscation, several people were pushed and hit by employees of the Local Police. The victims included children and teenagers. One of the children was also insulted by a member of the Local Police.
Under threats of beatings and more confiscations, the street was eventually mostly cleared. But the community stayed, people being determinate to maintain the camp, despite cold weather and lack of supplies. Children, young people, and ill people spent their night on chairs, blankets, mattresses, and sleeping bags, in the wind. More than half of the community spends both nights and days in the street, with no possibility for shelter.
On 17.09, the third day of protests, people are completing and updating their files for social housing, according to the law. The authorities, that could offer legal solutions, have abandoned us, hoping that people will become divided and abandon the protest and their demands. But all the intimidation attempts by the police, since the eviction day and up to today, were unsuccessful. The community on Vulturilor is not giving up and is resolute to continue resisting until its demands are met.
The community is resisting and appealing to the solidarity of anyone who sees housing rights as important rights. Show up on Vulturilor 50 to protest together against the lack of interest shown by the authorities!
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(Evacuation day)
[Sept. 17 Update: Since the writing of this first release, the people on Vulturilor have been evicted on Monday, Sept 15, by court officers assisted by riot police. After a first night spent in the street, in front of their former homes, and while some former tennats were protesting in front of Bucharest City Hall, around noon on 16.09., policemen of the local force moved on Vulturilor 50. They loaded in vans and transported to an unclear location the belongings which had been stored on the street by former tenants. The evicted were expected to relocate, separately, to men’s and mother-and-children night shelters, a provisional solution which they refused. So far, local authorities have been uncooperative about long-term solutions or genuine relief for those left homeless.]
(Protesting by climbing the evicted building)
(Post-evacuation: first night on the street)
Post-socialist land restitution
The land corresponding to Vulturilor 50, with an aproximate surface of 2300 square meters, was returned in July 2002 to former (before socialist nationalisation- tr.n) owners Harsia Ion and Zank Ligia Veturia, on the basis of law 10/2001. In 2002, the owners concluded lease contracts with all former ICRAL (socialist-initiated Enterprise for Construction, Maintenance, and Administration of Housing-tr.n) tenants living in the houses, in accordance with the provisions of Government Emergency Decision 40/1999 concerning the protection of tenants. The new lease contracts were concluded for a period of 5 years.
In 2007, the owners sold the land and the litigation rights to consultancy firm SC New Bridge Partners SRL, managed by a Norwegian citizen. In 2008, the firm brought eviction suits against the tenants. It won in 2009 with the court ordering the eviction of the tenants. The decision was not contested by the latter owing to their lack of any kind of legal expertise and the insufficent funds for hiring counsel.
„They took my mother and a number of other individuals to sign who knows what in court..”
When asked if they undertook legal proceedings to prevent eviction, the members of one of the families say: „ No, no, they took my mother and a number of other individuals to sign who knows what in court, a signature-that was it. The others had nothing to do. A lawyer came and she told them they were going to get money, to get things. And so they took my mother and several people to sign something there.” Thus, in Febuary 2010, the lawyer, Simona Debulat, hired by New Bridge Partners, persuaded several tenant families to sign a Delivery Document for the houses, towards the owner, in the office of court officer Lucian Gont.
The evicted claim that they agreed to sign the Document because they were promised both sufficient money for renting houses in other places and the indefinite postponement of the eviction. Lawyer Simona Debolat, with whom New Bridge Partners recently ceased collaboration, confirmed that a money offer was made to the tenants but claims that the committment has not been upheld by firm management to this day.
Only a few families left.
Most of the tenants have been living in the Vulturilor yard for 20 years, having been assigned there in the beginning of the 1990s by the state companies for which they worked. Since the 2009 expiry of the new contracts concluded with the Harsia-Zank owners and up to now, the tenants have been living in those homes without legal documents.
Not having the possibility of renting or buying apartments on the market, the majority cotinued to live in the houses from which they had been told they were going to be evicted. Only a few families left. They did so after managing to sublet their houses to evacuees from other districts. Even fewer succedded, in the late 1990s, to sell the rooms they had managed to purchase from the state, on the basis of law 112/1995, and move out.
„Do you know what I was told? Why did I have so many children?”
The requests for social housing, submitted to the district city hall and renewed throughout the 12 years since the restitution of the land, were left unsolved. The requests submitted to the capital (central) city hall were redirected to the city hall of District 3.
A woman who persevered in renewing her file (renewal requests have to be submitted every year- tr.n) told us: „ I submitted papers everywhere and 3 years ago they built houses at Republica, social housing built by District 3. We were also sent there by Ion Militaru (former head of the Location Spaces Service) and he told us these ones have been built for you. And we went and saw them only from the outside, the blocks they built, but did not receive anything. When we went for an audience he told us we don’t have the money to pay the rent.”
Another woman, enraged, remembers the experience of meetings at the district hall: „Do you know what I was told? Why did I have so many children? That I should have first gotten a house and then get married. They laughed at me. That’s exactly what I was told. They would get us in, in a group, not personally, a person per group and would finish very quickly with us.”
Those we spoke to are working as taxi drivers, maternal assistants, construction workers, day workers. They claim they had no problem in paying the rent to the owner after the land was returned. They say though that they feel excluded and humiliated because they are Roma:”Ion Militaru from Location Spaces used to say that if he gives a house to gipsies he falls ill.”
Abandoned by local authorities
The tenants began receiving walking summons in 2011. They contiuned to live in the houses in the absence of an alternative for living spaces and abandoned by local authorities. The new owners limited their proceedings to those summons and did not approach them formally for several years.
The FCDL (Common Front for Rights to Housing) contacted the people in the yard in July 2014: „We are waiting in fear that they will come one day and kick us out. For two years we’ve been packing things in the house, around Easter, that’s when the rumor always came, that they are coming to chuck us out. And for us there was no Easter! I would complain to the girls at work about where was I going to get bags to collect our things because they were throwing us out. Where should we go? We are not going in the street. Because I’ve got nowhere to go. Who is going to take me, with 7 children and 2 nephews? Where am I to go? My daughter works there with me, she’s in post-natal leave, the son works occasionally, sometimes he has work, sometimes there isn’t any.”
On the morning of September 2nd 2014, all the families received, besides the summons to leave the houses no later than 8 days, a notification about the forceful eviction in case of non-complicance, scheduled for September 15, 9:00 am.
The Common Front for the Right to Housing support the people on Vulturilor 50 on the days preceding the forceful eviction and calls for solidarity with them on Septmeber 15, beginning with 9:00 am. We call on District 3 City Hall, the Bucharest General City Hall and the New Bridge Partners SRL owners the unmediated observance of Art.5. of Law 112/1995 which states: „The eviction of tenants and the granting of rights to owners will be made only after the effective granting of a suitable living space by public authorities or the owner.”
According to the data obtained from the District 3 City Hall in September 2014, there are presently 3150 unsolved registered social housing claims, of which 500 were registered by families evicted from restituted buildings- all 500 being social cases. Concerning the solving rate, the District 3 City Hall claims it has received since 2005 until now only 33 houses from Bucharet General City Hall to be distributed towards petitioners, suggesting thus that the solving of the claims squarely depends on municipal authorities. Still, according to Art.1. from Goverment Emergency decition no. 68/2006, local coucils which have received more than 10 petitions from evicted persons as a result of the application of laws concerning restitution may opt either for the building of social houses through its own investment programs or the redistribution towards the evicted of housing for young couples, built through the program of the National Authority for Housing (ANL).
The Common Front for Housing (FCDL) is an activist platform which has as a mission the affirmation and defense of rights to housing against abuse. FCDL is initiated by persons evicted or threated with eviction and comprises, besides them, relatives, friends, activists, artists, NGO members.
fcdl.ro /// email: [email protected]
facebook: Frontul Comun pentru Dreptul la Locuire
Telephone: 0732394492
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The brochure is available for download here : FCDL Romania_housing justice
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The Common Front for the Right to Housing – FCDL – is an initiative of people whose basic right of housing is in danger to be broken or has already been broken.
Created by a group of persons evicted and at the risk of being evicted from Bucharest, Romania, alongside relatives, friends, activists, artists – FCDL is a platform of housing activism on a national level. We address firstly evicted people but also: anyone not affected by evictions but solidary with the right of proper housing; civic organizations; independent political groups but also to media, political decision makers, local and central authorities.
People of various backgrounds, spread in the countryside or in cities, are constantly affected by the gross breach of their fundamental right to housing. It’s either a real-estate company that invades the neighborhood to raise the market price of rents, either a city hall that does not give the proper support to vulnerable families, either a local council that decides the isolation of a whole community on the basis of ethnicity – we see everywhere cases of abuse and oppression enacted in the name of profit and power.
We believe that a real change can come only through solidarity and self-organizing.
This is why FCDL is an initiative with two main aims:
I) facilitating organization of various people in front of the breach of their housing rights;
II) bringing this issue on the public agenda of mass-media and authorities.
In front of authorities, we claim:
1. Identifying legal solutions to ensure housing to all tenants of former nationalized houses that are at risk of being evicted. No one should end up on the street!
2. Making available to the public on the websites of all city halls the updated lists of priority criteria in granting housing for the evicted.
3. Vouching for and granting of decent housing for people without a shelter.
4. Housing justice as a priority of both local financial agendas and general public agendas of authorities. We solicit the rise of budget allowance for the Housing Fund of the State with the aim of building and/or purchasing housing for both the evicted and the people whose income does not allow them to buy or rent a house in the current economic conditions. The current state of affairs is that because of deregulations and annulment of social rights during the last twenty years, housing problems are the rule, not the exception! This is why, the principle of social cases and social housing policy is not an efficient solution for the basic needs of most people.
5. Regulating rent prices for private housing according to the current standard of living.
6. Introducing in the Constitution the right of housing.
FCDL aims in the beginning:
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To gather people with housing issues of all neighborhoods of Bucharest but also from other cities of Romania, with the scope of collectively organizing our rights.
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To initiate public debates on the social consequences of the Law of Retrocession.
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To contribute with direct actions, mass-media interventions, case studies and critical theory in combating ideas and stereotypes given to economically vulnerable people without any housing who cannot afford one – like not willing to work, or parasiting wellfare structures, or being the inheritance of the communist regime, etc.
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To establish and maintain contacts with political groups for housing rights in Eastern Europe and elsewhere through the exchange of experience and knowledge.
February 2014
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More than 11m homes lie empty across Europe – enough to house all of the continent’s homeless twice over – according to figures collated by the Guardian from across the EU.
In Spain more than 3.4m homes lie vacant, in excess of 2m homes are empty in each of France and Italy, 1.8m in Germany and more than 700,000 in the UK.
There are also a large numbers of vacant homes in Ireland, Greece, Portugal and several other countries, according to information collated by the Guardian.
Many of the homes are in vast holiday resorts built in the feverishhousing boom in the run up to the 2007-08 financial crisis – and have never been occupied.
On top of the 11m empty homes – many of which were bought as investments by people who never intended to live in them – hundreds of thousands of half-built homes have been bulldozed in an attempt to shore up the prices of existing properties.
Housing campaigners said the „incredible number” of homes lying empty while millions of poor people were crying out for shelter was a „shocking waste”.
„It’s incredible. It’s a massive number,” said David Ireland, chief executive of the Empty Homes charity, which campaigns for vacant homes to be made available for those who need housing. „It will be shocking to ordinary people.
„Homes are built for people to live in, if they’re not being lived in then something has gone seriously wrong with the housing market.”
Ireland said policymakers urgently needed to tackle the issue of wealthy buyers using houses as „investment vehicles” – not homes.
He said Europe’s 11m empty homes might not be in the right places „but there is enough [vacant housing] to meet the problem of homelessness„. There are 4.1 million homeless across Europe, according to the European Union.
Continuarea aici :
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