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by Pelayu
740 days ago
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I see a lot of people here claiming that the okupas only affect landlords and banks. Here for example is an article in Spanish that tells the account of an 82-year old pensioner who's house was taken from him (occupied) while he was out visiting a friend in hospital. https://www.antena3.com/noticias/sociedad/vuelve-hospital-vi... I myself have also heard from friends in various cities in Spain of neighbour's apartments being taken also. I'm even aware of some apartments even in my small city that have been occupied. The fact of the matter is that these lax laws harm many ordinary people. This cannot be argued. There are a few factors causing the housing crisis but I will not comment more on this as to not go off-topic further. However I don't think the laws allowing okupas help the housing problem at all and are in fact dangerous and just cause more harm to ordinary, hard-working people. They need to be changed. |
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In the case you put, the guy called the police, and the police threw them out. What more can you want? Seems the system works perfectly fine, in that case, because it was his home, the squatters have no rights, so the police threw them out immediately as soon as he called the local police. How is the laws "lax" in this case, when the police has the authority to get rid of them?
No one is arguing for squatters right for other's primary residence. The division comes when you start talking about properties that are bought/owned for the sole purpose of speculation.
For others who might not know Spanish, here is a translation of the part where the trespassers (not occupiers/"okupas", as that's a different thing than what happened here) gets thrown out:
> He assures that he panicked: “I started to have an anxiety attack, I don't even know how I had the strength to call the local police... on the phone they told me to calm down”.
> The man, 82 years old, tells a team of Antena 3 Noticias that the agents arrived very quickly and tried to negotiate with the “squatters” , without success. “They asked me for permission to break down the door, and I said yes!”, and adds, “The police acted very quickly and I am very grateful to the agents”. Emotionally, he narrates, “That something like that happens to you and they sink your life, I would have stayed outside with my two little dogs.”