Members of the initiative have filed a complaint this Thursday at noon with the Court of Guard of Vitoria-Gasteiz, where they concentrated outside the building. The complaint has been filed against the Councillor for the Environment, Territorial Planning and Housing of the Basque Government, Iñaki Arriola, as the department's political head. The member of the Basque Government and the PSE are charged with offences of “prevarication, fraud and/or fraud”.

The sale of 500 homes in times of health crisis and confinement was publicly reported on 7 April. Vitalquiler was founded in 2001 by Caja Vital (after Kutxabank) and the business group Adania, with the objective of promoting a protected housing park for rent in Vitoria-Gasteiz, as explained by the initiative in favor of the right to housing. The homes sold this April began to be built in 2008: “Salburua and Zabalgana are located in several blocks and were built with public funding under the commitment to secure rental homes.” Kutxabank has now sold its share of these homes to the Swedish investment fund Catella, “leaving the management of social renting in private hands”. According to the initiative, Catella was founded by the owners of the multinational IKEA in 1987 and in recent years has acquired an additional 2,000 Official Protection homes in the State.

Behind the walls, people

The citizens' initiative has shown concern about the situation of the people living in these dwellings. Many of them are in a situation of "helplessness" that prevents them from paying in the event of a change in rental conditions. According to the sales agreement, the investment fund must respect the current conditions until 2033, “but given the way some investment funds operate, it would not be surprising if they changed them.” They have denounced that there are precedents in Barcelona, Madrid or Donostia-San Sebastián. The case of Benta Berri in Donostia-San Sebastián stands out, since the fund is the same as “the processing of eviction orders begins soon after hundreds of homes have been acquired in the area”.

Responsible PNV-PSE

The citizen platform has held the two parties that make up the Basque Government accountable: “In addition to the authorization of sale, the right of withdrawal and withdrawal, as set out in Article 65 of the Housing Act of the Basque Country, has been denied. In this way, they have lost a great opportunity to expand the public housing stock.” They have denounced that the housing policy of the Basque Government is contrary to the needs of the citizens, which puts the right to “private business” first.