You may not know it, but somewhere there is a lawyer suggesting to a retiree who has not been collecting rent from his tenant for three years, three!, that he should consider calling Desokupa. Of course, it has not even occurred to that retiree to make that call, nor will he, but let me tell it here because it illustrates the magnitude of another problem, as silenced as it is widespread, that is caused by the lack of housing public in this country.
The unsquatters are the Wagners who free occupied homes with methods, let’s say, that are dissuasive as well as morally and legally questionable. Bullying, in short. The same ones that Pablo Iglesias called “Nazis” and who were born in Colau’s Barcelona. Lawyers specialized in evictions say that the services of this battalion are being requested more and more, albeit silently.
Desokupa or similar groups should not even exist. Its presence, unfortunately, arises due to an Administration incapable of responding to the social drama that derives from poverty. Of poverty and the exasperating slowness of justice. In this swarm of nonsense lies a legislative chaos in housing matters, with multiple contradictory regulations, repealed, unconstitutional articles, unfulfillable obligations…
In other European countries, it is not worth occupying because the eviction is immediate, either by the police or by the judge as a precautionary measure. However, in Spain we are so cool that the current law ends up legitimizing illegal occupations.
If we look at the housing crisis from this other perspective, the conclusion is that there are a lot of ignored citizens who pay for so much neglect. They are mainly small landowners. No, we are not talking about rich people, vulture funds or banking entities, but about retirees like the one that gives rise to this article. People who rented a modest apartment inherited from their parents to compensate for their pension. People who support, literally, with their property, their money and their compassion, someone who decided out of his face that he was no longer paying rent because he had lost his job or for whatever reason.
If the debtor lives with a child, the resolution of the conflict becomes even more complicated. The same social services that cannot take him in declare him vulnerable and sheltered from the law. Without public housing, there is no rehousing possible. So the small owner, desperate, has no choice but to deal with a problem that corresponds to the State. Roof, expenses and damage are his responsibility. Until one day, two years after taking the court route, a judge can agree with him.
