The city’s silent squatters

The first time I slept out in the street was last summer, right after losing my home. I still remember how disgusted I felt at lying down on the ground in the gardens of Paseo del Prado. Cockroaches really gross me out. I had a backpack, a mat and my work uniform. I stayed away from my friends out of shame. I left my son with his grandfather. But I was not alone. The indignados [the protesters who coalesced into the 15-M movement in Spain, the precursor of Occupy Wall Street] took me in like one more member of their group. And so, from one day to the next, I became a squatter.”

This is the story of “Cuki,” a 60-year-old woman from Madrid who was evicted from her home and now occupies an abandoned building with three families on a street she would rather not name. She also refuses to give out her real name. She is aware that what she is doing constitutes a crime under article 245 of the Penal Code, but she justifies it with the following logic: “I had no other way out: I have to keep on fighting.”

There are hundreds of families in the same situation in the Madrid region alone, according to the 15-M movement and the evictees’ support group Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH). And not just families, either: there are single mothers, individuals out of a job and youths with precarious jobs who feel forced to occupy empty homes because they cannot pay rent, much less a mortgage. Most of them would rather not attract any media attention.

“We call this new type of occupation ‘discreet squatting,’ or ‘silent squatting’,” explains Ramón, a member of the 15-M movement who volunteers on the housing department. According to his group, there are three types of squatters: those who deliberately attract media attention, as in the case of Hotel Madrid, a former lodgings in downtown Madrid that was occupied last October by 15-M and PAH; those who live in social occupation centers, such as La Salamanquesa, and discreet occupiers of private homes.

“It is true that this practice has always existed, but in the last year the average squatter has changed prodigiously,” says Juan, a 27-year-old graphic designer who volunteers at the Casablanca social occupation center in Madrid’s Antón Martín area. “They are no longer just young people or fringe members of society, but family men who were left homeless and moved into the place next door.”

“Squatters have always been viewed negatively, but with the crisis this vision is changing, and society will end up accepting them,” says Julio Alguacil, a sociologist who specializes in planning issues and teaches at Carlos III University in Madrid.

The 15-M movement took me in. From one day to the next, I became a squatter”

Conchi Gil was evicted from her home last October, and now lives as best she can with her two sons, aged 19 and 17, inside a warehouse in a derelict food court in Leganés. “There are days when Adrián does not go to school because he can’t take a shower [they have no bathroom] and he’s ashamed to have his schoolmates see him in that state,” says his mother.

“As long as evictions remain on the rise, silent squatting will expand all over the city,” warns Chema Ruiz, a spokesman for PAH.

The figures speak for themselves. In the first three quarters of 2011, the General Council of the Judiciary recorded 7,145 evictions in the Madrid region. In the whole of 2008 that number was 3,878, suggesting that the number of homeless people has ballooned in recent years.

There is something of an irony in that a large number of people are being evicted while a huge amount of homes are sitting empty. Sources consulted by this newspaper last January said that there are an estimated five to six million unoccupied housing units in Spain, compared with three million in 2001. More specific figures are expected when the National Statistics Institute completes a building census later this year.

The view on squatters is changing, and society will end up accepting them”

“Son, we’re inside,” said E. H., 25, to her seven-year-old child, Abraham, after managing to open the door without breaking the lock. She sighed and tried to turn on the lights, but they didn’t work. No matter, she had a flashlight, a backpack with some clothes inside and a couple of sandwiches. That first night, both slept in an armchair in the living room.

“I knew \[the apartment\] was empty because I am a resident of the neighborhood and the owner, who was childless, died four years ago,” said E. H., speaking over breakfast inside the apartment, which she shares with her partner and her son in the Pinar de Chamartín district.

“We looked for an apartment but could not pay the rent, plus they were asking us for a deposit,” said E. H., who is out of a job and lives off her partner’s unemployment checks. Although she is aware that any day now the police could show up with a warrant, she at least has the comfort of knowing that her neighbors back her up. “The president of the owners’ association asked me for my bank account number so I could pay the electricity expenses, and this week we attended an owners’ meeting in which we promised to respect the building rules,” she says.

The Regional Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Madrid (FRAVM) says that so far, they have yet to receive any complaints in connection with this new type of silent squatting. As a matter of fact, they support the practice as long as the squatters are families who are occupying empty homes that are owned by the banks. Planning expert Julio Alguacil also considers squatting “an absolutely legitimate action covered by article 47 of the Spanish Constitution,” which recognizes the right to a dignified home. This sociologist adds that we are witnessing the birth of an unstructured society where disaffection and street violence will rise because of the economic crisis. “To top things off, the social services are overstretched and Madrid’s Public Housing Institute (Ivima) lacks the necessary resources.”

While evictions are on the rise, silent squatting will expand all over the city”

“We don’t have a magic wand,” retorts Carlos Martínez Serrano, coordinator of family and social services for the local government. The city runs 35 centers offering basic social services on a temporary basis. Martínez Serrano says that his department has signed an agreement with the Municipal Housing Corporation to make 200 homes available to people who lose their jobs over the next three years. Meanwhile Ivima, which runs 23,000 subsidized housing units, notes that around 5,000 families in serious financial straits have already benefited from rent reductions that bring the average monthly payment down to 50 euros.

But Alguacil feels that this is not enough. “Either they come up with new social housing policies, or the authorities will have to invest in law enforcement to throw out squatters,” he says.

Cuki’s 20-year-old son lives with his grandfather in a different part of the city. He does not know that his mother is a squatter.

“I’ve raised him to respect certain values and rules. Imagine if he were to find out that I am breaking them,” says Cuki, a house cleaner who lost her rental home when she refused to renew a bank guarantee for the property that she considered to be “excessive.”

One expert considers squatting to be covered by the Spanish Constitution

The acting Ombudswoman, María Luisa Cava de Llano, says that “squatting is not the answer.” Although she admits that the problem is there, she holds that society should prevent individuals from resolving situations by themselves. That is why it is essential for them to receive all sorts of public subsidies. Asked whether the failure lies with the banks’ attitudes of the institutions, Cava de Llano said that “the entire system has failed.”