In Santiponce, a municipality near Seville, the capital of Andalusia, there is a very significant case of how far in Spain the increasingly more serious housing problem, suffocating for millions of people. There, four families, with several minorshave been living for more than four months in a building to which the water and electricity have been cut off because the owner, who rents out what were small apartments in a student residence, It lacks permission to allocate it to that new use.
The last survey by the Foessa Foundation for Cáritas on social exclusion, published this week, reflects that more than 4.6 million homes In Spain they suffer difficulties related to access to housing or its maintenance. Furthermore, 14.1% of the Spanish population recognizes that they must make a economic overstrain to meet housing costs, which represents an increase of 1.7 points compared to 2018 and 8.9 compared to 2007.
In Andalusia, the housing situation is already the third biggest problem for its inhabitants, only surpassed by unemployment and the state of public health, according to the latest survey by the Foundation Center for Andalusian Studies of the Board. In a single year, housing has gone from being considered the biggest problem in the community by 1.5% of those surveyed to being considered by 8.1%.
In the midst of this sea of dark figures, four families with limited economic resources resist in a building without water or electricity since last August. They endure, simply, because they have nowhere else to go. Either that or the elements. They resist in Santiponce, the municipality of 8,500 inhabitants where the ruins of Italica, considered the first Roman city founded outside of what was Hispania, a territory governed by IU, with the support of the only PP councilor in the corporation, which is in charge of four municipal delegations.
The building that now serves as housing for these families was built as a student residence about two decades ago, but, due to the debts its owners contracted with the bank, it was expropriated and put up for auction. It was then that the current owner bought it, who changed the use of the property, despite lack permission for this, according to the city council. What were studios with one bedroom, a small living room with a kitchen and a bathroom to accommodate a student suddenly became apartments to house families of up to five and six members, in exchange for 495 euros per month, plus 20 euros for the water bill, 10 for the Wi-Fi connection and the payment of the corresponding electricity consumption.
More than 30 families lived in the studios of what was the student residence until the water and electricity were cut off in August, after the city council had informed the supply companies that the building lacked electricity. occupancy certificate for homes. The majority left, but four families decided to stay after not finding a place to move to, an apartment to rent with their limited resources. They are the families that continue to live in the dark at night, filling basins and water bottles in a park tap opposite to wash and cook, for which the Association for Human Rights of Andalusia called last Wednesday a demonstration in front of the town hall to demand that they be provided with the basic supplies of any home.
“This situation is due to the behavior of a criminal group that has converted the building to rent it with a fraud. They take advantage like in so many other neighborhoods, because this is the jungle. The home has become a mass destruction of people and the administrations, meanwhile, look the other way,” says Antonio, one of the activists from the Human Rights Housing and Meeting Information Point (PIVE) who is supporting the families who remain in the building.
Failure to comply with a royal decree
Human Rights considers that in this case the article 11 of Royal Decree 3/2023 on access to water for the vulnerable population, which obliges local administrations to “identify people who do not have access to drinking water or with limited access and the reasons”, whether personal economic or those of the competent administration. In addition, this rule requires city councils to implement “effective action mechanisms to ensure the right to water of the entire population”, to address the problems suffered by those who are in a more vulnerable situation or at risk of social exclusion.
The mayor of Santiponce, Juan José Ortega, has assured PublicHowever, the city council has done everything it can to help the families who remain in the building and cannot do more for them. According to their account of the events, they informed Aljarafesathe public company that supplies water in that area, and to the electric company Endesa that the property lacked a certificate of occupancy, after which both supplies were cut off.
“The owner never asked for the building’s occupancy certificate and we could not allow it, knowing everything that was happening, that there was many risks with so many people living there. And he told the owner that he had to vacate the building. We have done everything that is legal and could be done,” the mayor emphasizes.
The owner, named Tomás Armentero, according to Ortega, also owns other “inhumane” homes that he rents in Santiponce, such as those he built in what was a garage or in the old patio of a house. In the case of the former student residence, Health detected an outbreak of legionellaassures the municipal councilor.
The city council agreed in April with the tenants, according to Juan José Ortega, that the water and electricity supply would not be cut off until the end of the school yearso as not to hinder the lives of families in this way and so that they could move out once the minors had finished classes. In addition, the owner was fined 82,000 euros for keeping tenants in a property when he lacked permission to do so, while the families who decided to remain in the former student residence were provided with the pavilion showers of sports to stop washing and a fountain in a nearby park to supply water.
“The owner has taken advantage of us”
Fátima, 42 years old, is the mother of a five-year-old girl and a 16-year-old teenager, a 4th year ESO student at an institute in Santiponce, one of the four families that have remained in the building without water or electricity for more than four years. months, because they haven’t found anywhere else to go. With the payroll that she collects as cook in a restaurant He could pay the 495 euros of rent, plus water, electricity and internet costs, but he lacks the employment contract that is required in other places to rent a home.
They came a year ago from Nador, Morocco, because their sister found them a house and a job. They thought they were going to be better here and now they have to live in the dark, lighting themselves with a small gas lamp and the flashlight of the cell phone they carry in a neighbor’s house, going to get water in the park, washing clothes by hand…
“It is a very hard situation. The owner has taken advantage of us, he has accumulated money and now he is enjoying it, while we are like this. If we had known that the house did not have a permit, we would not have come,” Fátima tells this newspaper.
The landlord stopped charging them rent, but he goes around the building from time to time to tell them to leave. “Sometimes he comes screaming, threatening for us to leave, saying that he is going to close the house because there is a report that says that the building must be vacated,” says Fátima. What this family considers crucial now is that, at least, their electricity and water supply be restored. “It is something fundamental, human rights. We can pay for the electricity, that is no problem. But they tell us that we have to go. And where are we going? If there is another place where we can be and we can pay for it, there is no problem,” emphasizes Fátima.
Human Rights assures that the municipal social services of Santiponce have suggested, on several occasions, the possibility of informing the Prosecutor’s Office that the place where this woman’s family resides does not meet the minimum hygienic and sanitary conditions for minors to live there. The organization affirms that some of its activists have even been treated in an “unnecessarily aggressive” manner by those responsible for these services and expelled of the city council “in bad ways”.
The mayor, however, denies such accusations to this newspaper and assures that the city council has offered these families “all possible help”, except a home, because they lack it. “From social issues, everything that could be done has been done,” he emphasizes.
Ibán Díaz, a member of PIVE, attended one of the meetings with the social services of Santiponce to address the issue of these families and affirms that the treatment they received was ““quite ugly”. According to him, they began to speak aggressively to some of the Human Rights activists and ended up kicking them all out. And given the lack of response from municipal officials, they decided to call a protest rally in front of the town hall.
Human Rights is looking for a housing alternative for the four families who remain in the former Santiponce student residence, but cannot find it. The market of housing rental is “very inflated” and it is very difficult to find something at a price affordable for their income. “There is no system that takes this type of situation into account. And we find quite a few cases of this type, usually women with children in their care,” explains Ibán Díaz.
In the city of Seville, according to Díaz, there are 80 families who are on the waiting list to be assigned a flat. social emergency, So in a municipality like Santiponce, much smaller and with less economic capacity, the possibilities for this type of family are even lower.
And the needs are many in a community like Andalusia, where more than 1.2 million people are in a situation of severe poverty, that is, with a monthly income that does not exceed 560 euros, according to the 2023 report of the European Network against Poverty and Social Exclusion.
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