It hasn't been very hard for them to reach people. “We start housing as a union and those who come to us are people with different housing problems. We have a phone number and an email address for people to get in touch with us and to reach them, in addition to social media, we try to be visible on the street of our neighborhoods through posters and banners. But the most common way people get to PET is by mouth.”

They have a working team to deal with each problem or case and every Thursday all SAT militants and affected persons meet in the general assembly. Also in an alert situation they decided to keep the assemblies in front of them, “because in these assemblies we see the real work of the union and our philosophy is manifested: Through the assemblies our colleagues see that their problem is not individual”. About 40 people meet in the assemblies and stress that they take all measures to ensure health: mask, safety distances, room, window opening, respect to the forums...

"People leaving the street..."

In addition to the assemblies, neighborhood work and work have been carried out in the plazas of the neighborhoods to make the problem of housing visible and mobilize people. They consider that the meeting on the street is “absolutely necessary”: “It has been a political decision we have made from the very beginning, because we are clear that the people who leave the streets are a people who fight. So we decided to make assemblies on the street and in the plazas. On the one hand, it was a way to carry on with our work, because at that time the forums were very small and the spaces in which we met were reduced. We realized it was safer to gather on the street. On the other hand, at the time we didn't have many options: it was impossible to work telematically, because a lot of people don't have tools and capacity. And thirdly, to denounce the limitations and prohibitions that are being imposed on us as a result of the health crisis. They hinder us from continuing our political activity, but in the meantime the evictions and excesses of the owners continue. We were clear that we would not leave our colleagues alone and decided to continue meeting.”

They explain that based on the material need of housing, the objective is to create a community: “The struggle for housing is a means for us, a gap that we have found in this system. But the goal is to build a fighting political community. All this is impossible in daily life and in the face, without a job in formal and informal spaces. These spaces allow us to know each other, to take care of ourselves, to gain confidence...”, they explain, and in addition to responding to the material needs of the working class, they try to respond to the subjective needs: “The need to have a community that defends you and break the isolation.”

Once the AZET has been developed, the Asetu Public Deposit has been opened: “For us, housing is not four walls, but where workers reproduce all aspects of our lives. In practice, we have seen that the housing problem never appears in isolation. It is usually closely linked to basic material needs and we have seen clearly that rental is one of the last things that are left to be paid, that many of our members have stopped eating to be able to pay the rent.” Thus created Asetu Herri Storehouse, which at the moment responds to material needs related to food and hygiene, “but over time we intend to extend the Herri Denda to other needs such as school material, clothing or whatever.” They want to collectively meet material needs without falling into assistentialism: “What we do is organize and break class solidarity, just the opposite of assistentialism. Class solidarity seeks to turn the injured person into a political subject, to collectivize and politicize his problem... Therefore, the goal of the union, in addition to solving concrete cases, is the politicization of that person, making them part of the political community”.

We asked them about fear. “If we stop meeting, the risk that comes may be greater than the other... you don’t lose the fear, but beyond COVID-19 people have other problems and we have to solve them.”