A resident of the Bilbao neighborhood of Atxuri has finally been evicted this Tuesday from the home she occupied under a social rental scheme through the public rental agency of Euskadi, Alokabide. The eviction took place around 9:30 a.m., while nearly a hundred people gathered in front of the building to try to prevent it.
Agents of the Ertzaintza have established a police cordon around the building to prevent the protesters from accessing the interior. The gathered individuals positioned themselves behind a banner that read, in Basque and Spanish, "Alokabide evicts Esther." Despite the protest, the eviction ordered by the court has been carried out.
The spokesperson for the housing union AZET, Celia Vicente, present at the mobilization, explained to Europa Press that the gathering is "a public denunciation" of the eviction of a neighbor from the Bilbao neighborhood, who "has been living in her house for 10 years, which is rented to her by Alokabide and from which they intend to leave her on the street without any type of housing alternative." She emphasized that the case highlights the lack of housing solutions for vulnerable people in social rental homes.
For her part, the spokesperson for the collective, Celia Alegria, pointed out as "the direct executors" of the eviction "the Basque Government, the PNV, and the PSE-EE." In her opinion, "in these two weeks we have seen all the state media filled with electoralist speeches in defense of housing when, for practical purposes, they are the ones who intend to carry out this eviction and do not want to provide any type of housing alternative."
Alegria has demanded that housing be "a guaranteed right" and has called for the creation of more social rentals "based on the needs of the working class, not with abusive rents." She insisted that the public housing stock must respond to the economic reality of tenants and not reproduce pricing dynamics that they consider disproportionate.
Criticism of the housing decrees of the Basque Government
Questioned about whether the housing decrees that the Government Council plans to approve this Tuesday could have prevented the eviction of Atxuri had they been in effect earlier, the spokesperson was blunt in asserting that "those decrees are electoral propaganda." In her words, "if the very people who intend to carry it out are executing an eviction today, I don't know why there should be a difference in the following days."
She emphasized that the union supports "any improvement that exists for the working class," but rejects "that the goal is reformist changes and electoral crumbs." In this sense, she underscored that "what we would like today is to claim that the Basque Government is the one that has the direct responsibility for this eviction to be carried out" and urged the regional Executive to "use its power to halt it."
The spokesperson for the people gathered has demanded "the halt of all evictions, regardless of the conditions of the people." Referring to the specific case of the neighbor evicted in Atxuri, she denounced that she is "at a moment where she cannot afford the rent, which has been imposed on her abusively," and has claimed that "she should not be at risk of ending up on the street without any kind of alternative."