On Thursday morning the guide was presented in the Bizi Etxebizitza Sarea neighborhood, Errekaleor Bizirik!, The Elkarrekin Aid Network, Ongi Etorri Refugees in Araba and Gasteiz by the Inor ez Etxerik Gabe movements, in front of the City Hall of Vitoria-Gasteiz. In April they started No Census, No Existing! “Make the problem of the census visible, point out the city council as responsible and demand a solution” campaign.

Standard, access to other rights

They recall that the standard, according to the law, should be a simple administrative procedure that records the place of residence of the citizen. “Living on the street or in a house, having or occupying the house with contract or without contract is not a requirement to register.” In practice, as in the whole of Euskal Herria, in Vitoria-Gasteiz, “the census has become an access to different resources and rights”. The standard is a prerequisite for obtaining social benefits, schooling, obtaining a health card or initiating a regularisation procedure for migrants, among others.

According to the groups that have presented the guide, the City of Vitoria-Gasteiz offers the owners the conditions of registration “competition for registration”. For this reason, there are people, for example, who live paying for a rent in a home and can't register in it, or vice versa, who pay to register in a home even if they don't live in it. “The City Hall is a direct accomplice to the abuses of the houses owned and the black market of the census”, they point out that the situation particularly affects the migrated and impoverished vitorians. They indicate that in April the City Council was asked to modify these conditions, but that “due to the lack of response or modification” they have decided to present the Guide of Legal Self-defense.

Tool for access to individual census and collective struggle

The guide consists of several sections. The entry contains the conditions established by the City Council to be able to register. The following are the tools to be able to register, taking into account two main situations: on the one hand, citizens with a fixed domicile who lack registration due to lack of property or contract, and on the other hand, the resources for residents in the street or without a fixed residence. The guide lists the steps to be taken to obtain the census in each situation, the models of documents to be presented in the administration for its issuance and the means of advice and support.

The guide is available on the social networks of the groups mentioned and on the accounts X and Instagram @unregistered. It can be purchased on paper at the headquarters of the Old Party Gasteiz Txiki neighbourhood association. The guide explained that they have several objectives: to offer citizens a collective route to obtain the census, to achieve changes in the municipal administrative procedure, to organize and join forces before the class “structural oppression” to “change everything that needs to be changed”.