They have been fighting for a long time in the area of housing, dealing, among other things, with situations of risk of eviction. On this occasion, however, they have decided to make the situation of their assembly public at the moment. What has prompted them to do that?

It will be two years since the creation of the Elkartzen Elkarlaguntza Network. Since then, every week we have faced both housing problems and food shortages, but in recent months many affected have approached the assembly with very serious problems. The work we have been doing so far has focused on each specific case, trying to provide concrete solutions to that particular case, proposing a strategy for each problem. But this time there are eighteen people who are at risk of losing their homes, and so we thought it was time to put the situation on the table.

Although the individual treatment of the problems can facilitate the implementation of a strategy and the results we get working in this way, with this individual work in many cases the problems do not have media follow-up. And with eighteen people having a problem in the assembly, we thought it was time to denounce it and make it known.

“A eviction is going to take place today”, “A family has evicted”, “13% has begun eviction”… We are often told by numbers of evictions. You, on the other hand, have put names and faces to the problem.

It has been an absolutely conscious decision. As has already been mentioned in the question, we collect a lot of data in the rough, and we believe that this is not enough for people. Reading a headline can cause something, but… The aim of this campaign has been to show that our neighbors and neighbors are the ones who go to the street and are in danger of staying in the street. That is the main objective.

In short, if we look only at the headlines or data, we can think that the housing problem is something distant, which does not happen in our environment, but it is not. The members of our people are those who are at risk of losing the house, those who cannot afford the rent, and we thought it was important that we made it visible. We have also sought to get out of the cave to say “we are here, we are the ones who suffer this barbarism”. And we have no fear of showing our faces, because we believe that our faces are going to influence our neighbors and neighbors, around us. Therefore, it is necessary to leave and say of this anonymity: “We are here, we have problems, but we are going to face them.”

The reality that you are denouncing is crude, and that is what you are dealing with in the assemblies. What is the atmosphere in the meetings? What are the prospects?

At the moment, the atmosphere of the assembly is sometimes difficult. There are eighteen people hanging from a thread, who do not know what their future will be, so many times we live hard and difficult times.

In addition, we have limits. As we say clearly in the communiqué, although we are trying to deal with these problems, it is clear that we have our shortcomings, and then, being aware of this, sometimes there are also moments of despair in the assembly. However, I believe that the only way to resolve this despair is through the organization. And that is precisely what we do in the assembly. We in the House understand and make it clear that nobody is alone in this struggle, that there are many of us who are in a similar situation, and that, as there are many of us who suffer from it, there are many of us who are trying to turn that situation around. Knowing that we won't be alone.

Although we do not know how many of these eighteen members will find a stable solution, at least we know that behind there will be a union, that the union members will fight together denouncing and claiming that housing is a right that must be guaranteed to all.

They mention that these eighteen members have been affected by other problems (precariousness, male violence...) with housing. Class, gender and race are significant factors in a person's chances of having a housing problem. And it's not just that, it's aggravating the problem. This is clear from what has happened to a colleague who was in danger of eviction: the owner has tried to violate it. What do you read about what happened?

I fully agree with what you have said in the question. We have seen that the housing issue does not have the only face, but, in addition to the difficulties to access housing or its stability, it also presents other problems for women, poor and foreign. Often in these homes there is no safe place. A safe place, that should be the place of housing, but that's not the case in many cases.

Regarding the aggression suffered by our colleague, this is not the first time we have denounced the machist violence in the housing problem. And in those cases it is surprising that it is not vulture funds, banks or gigantic organisms such as those that do not guarantee the right to safe housing, but the working class itself. That is what happened to us on Thursday: a neighbour in a rather precarious situation has tried to rape one of our members.

We believe that what's behind it is private property. In short, because private property offers possibilities of violence and domination. This has historically been the case. Although it belongs to the working class, even if it is in a precarious situation, private property allows it to be above someone. As in this case, when the owner is a man and a tenant a woman, gender is the one that goes through the relationship that is given and can be a violent one. That is, man can take advantage of the advantages offered by the patriarchal system to establish a violent relationship with that woman below him. And this is not an isolated case, but a reality that is established in our society and in our daily lives.

With this structured system, we believe that these tendencies of violence and oppression that women, foreigners, the poor will suffer will be maintained. Therefore, we believe that we have to put in tools to detect violence such as that occurring in the housing environment or inside it, on the one hand, and to give strong responses on the other. We have our tools in the union, but what is clear is what we say in the campaign: if the institutions do not respond to the situations of our eighteen members, the attack that took place on Thursday is perpetuating, because it is a daily reality. And so this makes it increasingly clear that what we are asking for with our campaign is not just fair, but necessary.

The City Hall of Basauri, Arrigorriaga and the public housing management entities (Etxebide, Alokabide, Bidebi…) have held them responsible for the situation and have asked them to study the situation of these 18 people and put the means for none of them to stay on the street. What resources do you want?

Our requirements, or the resources we ask, could be summed up in a nutshell. Because housing is a right that must be guaranteed, everything is said. It is clear that it is not guaranteed, and that it does not seem to be guaranteed, but that is the only thing we are asking for. The last sentence of our communiqué says that “no one is left homeless”, and that is what we want. Then, each situation has its needs and it will be necessary to see in each case what those needs are in order to be able to meet them.

We know that there are resources. We know, for example, that Basauri City Hall has empty emergency homes. And you do not want to make it available to us or to our colleagues. Take another example: The CEAR is also one of those responsible for the situation of a member or a family, and we are aware that processes can be accelerated. This is what we have seen in our two-year trajectory, in which social services, municipalities, Etxebide, Alokabide, CEAR, can speed up these processes and provide resources and answers to those people who really need it. And that is what we are going to denounce.

What we want is simply to guarantee the right to housing and to ensure that no one is left in the street. That is what we have fought for in social services, but we have not succeeded.

A week has passed since the beginning of the campaign. Has there been movement on the part of municipalities and institutions?

No, we are still waiting for the moment. We have received no response, and our demand is clear: that our eighteen members do not stay on the streets. Now the ball is on your roof, to put it in some way. We have seen that our roads are exhausted, or that at least in the time marked by dismissal orders we will not be able to give an effective response. So, given the deadlines that many of these members have, the public services and the institutions are the only ones that can provide effective answers here. It is now up to them to move the file. We will continue to wait, but what is clear is that if they continue to wait for the situation it will only get worse, and then our campaign and denunciation will be even harder. If we do not receive an answer, we will be in a more serious situation and things will become more serious.

They indicate that if they fail to respond to the requirements and the problem, they will continue to report the situation. Are you planning to mobilise?

This campaign, unlike others we have carried out, has no completion date. It will be maintained as long as the situation is not processed or resolved.

Furthermore, we believe that this campaign allows us to make public and to make public the issues that we have so far kept in the assembly, or rather the injustices. So far, we have limited all of this to the assemblies and to our daily lives, and we believe that this campaign will allow us to visualize it. We believe that our strongest mobilization will be to make public what we do on a daily basis, and to show clearly what the situation is that a neighbor with housing problems has to live in, the leftist… That is what we think is important.

However, we do envisage a strong mobilisation, which we hope will be communicated through a press conference. We do not have it fully defined, but we are moving what can be a powerful action, so that in the situation this has an answer as soon as possible.

They call on the public to join the campaign. How can anyone who wants to do so hand a hand?

Since we made the campaign public, we have been meeting with neighbourhood associations, political groups and other agents from Arrigorriaga and Basauri. At the moment it is having a good reception, as is normal, eighteen neighbours are going to stop on the street, it is a situation that few of us would like and in that sense we are receiving support. What we are asking both of them and the public is for us to join the campaign. How can they join the campaign? For example, by participating in the mobilizations we announce. In addition, sharing our material on social networks, disseminating the material we are publishing.

And it's not just social media. We even believe that oral is more important than the information that moves on social media. It can encourage a reflection on the housing problem and make it clear that the reality that we so far believed did not exist near us also exists here. The exercise of reflection and empathy can be promoted by mouth, reflecting on what the risk of being homeless or being homeless can entail.

In short, what we want through these awareness-raising campaigns, beyond the search for solutions, is for people to make that reflection. So that housing issues are on everyone's lips, just as in recent years with feminism, we can reach a widespread discourse in society.

We know, of course, that we are also going to take opposing views with our political actions, and that is why it is up to us to build a trench. Complete our trench and defend from it the right to housing and fight against adverse speeches. We believe that we have an essential job there.

Finally, and following the indications of what anyone who wants to throw a hand can do, they can participate in the mobilizations we announce. We believe that this is all we can ask of the citizens.