Sindy Rodríguez and Willmar Díaz are Colombian. In September 2018, they arrived in Vitoria-Gasteiz, fleeing from the atmosphere of violence in their people, along with their children Aitor, Francisco José and Aaron, 13, 8 and 5 years old, whose names have been invented. In Vitoria-Gasteiz they made a request for political asylum with the help of CEAR, who lived in the shelter of the Old Town of the association for a while and were integrated into the life of the neighborhood. For a few months they moved to Valencia on a proposal from the CEAR, with the aim of continuing with the request. In December they received the government’s refusal, “inviting” them to leave the territory within a month. Once the deadline has expired, they would be illegal citizens – they are already –. They returned to Vitoria with empty hands.

ARGIA contacted the family in early April for a report that intended to publicize the reality of the people who are going through the confinement. The five then lived in one room, without a mattress to sleep. With no savings or income, food was delivered through the Casco Viejo care networks and help associations for the poor. The situation got even worse: the owner of the house, who had left the room until then, fired them.

The City Hall: homeless; yes the bus tickets for Valencia

According to Rodríguez, the Basic Social Services of Vitoria-Gasteiz were aware of what was going to happen in the dismissal. The family had announced days earlier to their social worker in the Casco Viejo that the tension in the house was high and that they would not soon be expelled, that they would run out of resources on the street, and if that happened, what they could do, where to get shelter. The social worker told them that the resources were full, that she couldn’t do anything else until the situation was “extreme”, “When is it extreme then?” asks Sindy Rodríguez. However, he proposed a solution: If they agreed to travel to Valencia, they would give them money for tickets.

Shelter without light or water

Rodriguez, Díaz, Aitor, Francisco José and Aaron sought refuge in the occupied housing blocks of Olarizu: the lower of an abandoned municipal building. Natural light barely enters during the day, electricity and water are not in the whole neighborhood since they were cut by the City Hall before the winter. Two other women over 60 years old live in the same block, each at home and a young couple in a third. All South Americans. They've given the newcomers heat. “Here we are better,” says Rodríguez in the darkness of the house. The smell of cleaning products is penetrating, they have been clearing the trash for several days and cleaning the house. “In the front house we were in such a room,” he explained, lighting with flashlight the landing on the ground floor, which will be about six square meters, “and we didn’t have a sleeping mattress.” Now they've got mattresses, but you're so dirty that you're sleeping on top or on the ground.

Municipal Police: eviction report

Thursday, 7 May, 22:00h. We're in Olarizu's house, intending to record an interview. There is also a member of the community network of the Casco Viejo, with painting games for children, and two members of the occupied district of Errekaleor, with table and chairs, “to not give food to children on the ground”. In the abandoned housing blocks of the Olarizu City Hall there are dozens of neighbours and neighbours, against whom the City Hall is acting permanently. Police pressure is maximum and in the houses in front there are neighbors who lie down the windows and call the police if you see someone coming into an abandoned house. On the contrary, several people from Errekaleor and popular movements from Vitoria-Gasteiz have maintained contacts and alliances with the local neighbors during these years. In the face of the fear of the police and the legitimate citizens, Díaz proposes that we all enter at the same time and when the night has already been done. When we walked in, Miguel Strogoff put back the solid cane to block the door.

We took ten minutes at home. Aitor, Francisco José and Aaron welcomed the games with great joy. Rodríguez and Díaz are telling us that they lack a street and family environment in Colombia, but that the environment of violence experienced there is very difficult for the children and that for them they thank, problems, to be here. Then the blows and the radiance of the flashlights have begun in the main door and in the windows of the house. It's the Municipal Police, in order of openness.

Diaz has opened it. The police have not informed him that they have no right to enter the house without a court order and have accessed the house directly. Whites have forced us out, and two municipal policemen have stayed inside with the family. From the outside, the words of the police have sometimes come to us in a threatening tone. Then they will tell us that Díaz and Rodríguez have identified them and told them that they are going to make a report to start the eviction process. The City Hall will decide how to act. They'll tell us that they've been asked about us and that the police have reproached them for lying in explaining what we're there. “I have many years of experience, they’ve come to teach me how to take care of myself. Tell the truth!” In the same group, Díaz and Rodríguez were maintained.

The Municipal Police has imposed fines on the three members of Errekaleor and the Old Town: “It will be at least EUR 600.” For breaking the rules of confinement, they are told, but the fine, even for obstructing them, includes in the section “report of facts” a reason that no one has confirmed to them: “To meet in a home by organizing an informative meeting of a family that a (sic) occupied a property” (“to be in a home and organize an informative meeting of the family that has occupied the house”). The marginalized do not seem to be able to decide and act for themselves.

The City Hall: at the limit of the law, against kindness

After a panic night, on Friday, the family is quieter and more relaxed. The biggest panic was over by the little one, as Aaron, when the Municipal Police began to hit the windows, thought they would break and enter there. They are told that eviction, if any, will not be immediate. The other great fear was the expulsion and separation of children from their parents, but there is no danger right now. The facts leave many elements for reading, but we will confine ourselves to municipal social policies.

The social worker has not offered any recourse to the Vitorian family on the street, including three minors. When, during the confinement, all the evictions in Vitoria-Gasteiz have been locked in the fronton of Lakua to comply with the sanitary measures. For years, until the day before the health crisis, the people who slept in ATMs and industrial areas were the same. Being or continuing in the street is not in the hands of the evicted: a week earlier a user of the fronton of Lakua told me how he preferred to leave Laudio, where he had his usual home before entering, how the police took him away and forced him to return. Do not shelter in the midst of a pandemic, but do pay for the expulsion trip. When and during confinement, against imposed mobility bans and public health. On the other hand, the Spanish Government has banned evictions during the period of alarm and confinement of vehicles. The Municipal Police did not evict anyone on Friday, but took the first necessary step in the procedure for eviction.

It should be discussed whether the City of Vitoria-Gasteiz has not infringed the law in some of the decisions taken against this family. Whether it is legal or not, there is no doubt that some specific people, and in general municipal social services, have made ruthless, cruel and unfair decisions against an entire family.

Isolated failure or logical effect?

We should think that these are isolated facts arising from a chain of errors. In the Social Policy Committee of the City Council of 20 April, the delegate of the Area of Social Policies, Older People and Children of the government PNV-PSE, the socialist Jon Armentia Fructuoso, before developing the long list of unhealed works said: “In the current context, we are working hard to provide protection, care and care to the most vulnerable: single and dependent persons, homeless or at risk of exclusion, families with difficulties in meeting basic needs, children and adolescents in situations of unprotection, victims of male violence, etc.”

But listening to the people who know the work of the social services from within and to the groups fighting the exclusion that follow their activity is enough to understand that what has happened is far from the exception: for example, it is common for social workers to offer travel tickets to a village outside the poor who comes to ask for the right; or in these weeks of confinement the police is harassing the inhabitants of the houses of Olarizu when they go. It is not a mistake of the system, but its logical consequence.