The subsidiary of an investment fund threatens to evict more than 15 families in Fuensanta

Several of those affected by evictions in the Fuensanta neighborhood.
M.A Montesinos

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The letter arrived last Thursday at eleven in the morning. A “very well dressed” woman knocked on Tania Romero’s door to announce that in seven days she had to leave the house with her 8, 7, 3 and 2 year old children, who had already moved to the neighborhood and were studying in her public school. A burofax (in the name of the previous tenants) said they were evicting her. It had been four months since Tania had to occupy that apartment out of sheer necessity.

In the end, dozens of people and members of the Platform for People Affected by Mortgage (PAH), Entrebarris and Stop Evictions gathered at the door of their home at the time of launch, also at 11. The judicial procession did not appear so he stopped. Tania stays home. Normally this would be the end of the story, but it turns out that Tania is just the tip of the iceberg. The vultures arrived in the Fuensanta neighborhood last summer. And there are many affected families.

Promontoria Coliseum, a subsidiary of the American investment fund Cerberus, is the new “home” of many families in Fuensanta. Trini, Vicky, María Alejandra, are some of the names of the more than 15 mothers affected in the neighborhood. All with minors under their care. This fund bought their apartments from the Sabadell bank and refuses to renew the rents. The burofaxes started arriving in July and August. First to Trini, and then to the rest. “We called a meeting to speak with three affected people from the neighborhood, and fifteen appeared,” says José Luis González, PAH spokesman.

Those affected had been paying religiously every month for years, many of them are lifelong neighbors who have grown up in the neighborhood. Until their new landlord appeared, who does not negotiate and has even offered them money to leave the apartments. “They gave me 2,500 euros to leave. That’s five months’ rent. But what do I do with my girls? ” Says María Alejandra. “They wanted to give me 1,000 euros to leave the apartment,” says Trini.

Maria Alejandra, for example, receives the Valencian Income for Inclusion and her husband works. The mortgage became an unbearable burden, but she reached an agreement whereby the bank would keep the apartment but she would pay a social rent. Since then, she has been up-to-date with the community, like the rest of those affected, who, even with precarious jobs, paid their fees every month. But the society that has bought the houses wants them to leave, and the sooner the better. The only one who can resist a little is Trini, who took advantage of the government decree to extend the rent for six months.

“They have said no and it is no. To the street, period, they don’t care that we have small children or anything, “laments Tania. Trini assures that some families, due to ignorance or not knowing how to seek help, have already been evicted from the neighborhood. Many others have already been sued after their lease expired. “We have grown up here since we were little, we have lived here our whole lives. And lately many families who are the same have not stopped coming. There are a lot of families like that, and evictions were supposed to have been prohibited, ”says Trini.

“Unbearable” situation

“Although the courts were closed for two months, in 2020 there have been 4,501 evictions in the Valencian Community (one every two hours), so the government decree that ‘prohibits evictions’ is very insufficient. Evictions without a housing alternative continue to occur, and we are in an unbearable situation ”. This is how forceful José Luis González, PAH spokesperson, expressed himself after paralyzing Tania’s eviction, and recalled that on the 20th, several housing groups will demonstrate in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento de València to ask for a housing law “beyond the political strategy, in which the parties are really involved in defending this right ”.

From the platform they pointed out that “at this time the right to private property prevails over the right to life and housing, and it seems that the Government tells us that a vulture fund located in Luxembourg has more rights than people to live in their houses”.

González denounced that “when we owe something they chase us to jail, but the banks are not only not persecuted but they are rescued when they owe money. So we demand that they return the money that we lend them in the form of houses that they have empty, and that can be used by public administrations ”, he declared.

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