[NYTr] Caracas Housing Activists March Against Forced Evictions

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Venezuelanalysis - Sep 20, 2007
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2627


Caracas Housing Activists March Against Forced Evictions

by Michael Fox

Caracas - Hundreds of Venezuelan housing activists descended on the
Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), this Tuesday, to demand an end to
the forced evictions.

The lively and vocal march, which ran from the Plaza Bolivar to the
TSJ, was coordinated by the Zero Eviction Platform- a coalition of
various Venezuelan pro-housing groups, such as the Venezuelan Renter's
Network, the Network of Apartment Managers, the Urban Land Committees
(CTU), Roofless Committee Foundation, the Venezuelan National
Association of Free and Alternative Community Media (ANMCLA), among
others.  

The march was part of an international campaign against forced
evictions, coordinated through the International Alliance of
Inhabitants.  As a result, various international housing activists from
Uruguay, Peru, Argentina and the Caribbean, marched in solidarity.

"We believe that the only way that people can achieve things is to get
out in the streets," said Eduardo Barrios, a housing activist from the
Uruguayan Housing Coop Federation, FUCVAM, who is in Venezuela to share
his experiences. "Today we are supporting our companions in their
struggle for 'No Evictions,' because we believe that housing is a human
right."

Activists in the march called for a moratorium against forced renter
evictions, an end to housing speculation, and demanded "dignified
housing and habitat."

The march came the day after judges returned back to the TSJ after
recess.   

"In these days, when activity is reestablished in the tribunals after
the judicial vacations, thousands of families shake with fear knowing
that the re-initiation of terrorist judicial activities may leave them
in the street without the right to defense, without guarantees and due
process, nor a sense of equality," read the march's press release.
According to Andrés Antillano, a member of the Metropolitan Renters
Network -As reported in El Universal- already 300 forced evictions have
occurred this year alone in Caracas and with 6,000 eviction judges in
metropolitan Caracas, approximately 70% of the decisions favor the real
estate owners.   

"We are here to support the Constitutional Reform of the President and
to call for an end to forced evictions," said Zaida Rodriguez, a member
of Tuesday's march, who herself was evicted with her family from her
apartment in Vista Alegre a few years ago. "It's sad when you are
evicted?  they came in the middle of December and they could let us
even celebrate the holidays.  The tribunal put us out on the street."

Rodriguez is now struggling for an expropriation of an apartment in the
Caracas neighborhood of La Florida, which she hopes will be granted to
her and her community soon.  

The housing situation in Caracas is going through growing pains, as
legislation passed by the Metropolitan Mayor's office has called for
the expropriation of some apartments when the renters have lived in the
home for a pre-determined number of years. The legislation was an
attempt to regularize the situation of Caracas housing, against the
increasing evictions occurring to renters across the city.  However,
out of fear that renters may attempt to expropriate their apartments,
many landlords have pulled their properties from the market and are
instead looking to sell.  As a result, apartment seekers in Venezuela's
5 million person capital city are finding it next to impossible to
finding an apartment to rent.