A great demonstration, supported by two hundred citizen organizations and thousands of people, walked the streets of Valencia last Saturday in demand of affordable housing and against speculation. The columns of people who came from different neighborhoods of the capital converged on the Town Hall square to denounce the exorbitant growth of rents and from there “a spontaneous camping trip” was born where fifty young people pitched their tents. Two days later they are still installed after forming an assembly and deciding each step horizontally. With banners that read “Houses without people, people without homes,” they denounce the injustice that there are many people who cannot afford an apartment.
Álex Masiá (24 years old) is one of the campers. Works as “black” for a publishing house and studies Moral and Political Philosophy. “We were awake the first night in case they came to evict us,” he explains this Monday, but, “luckily,” it didn’t happen and the camp is still standing. “We are going to try to extend it as long as we can,” says this student, who shares a rental apartment in Valencia with two other classmates and despite that, consumes 60% of his salary just to find a roof over his head.
The campers meet in the morning to prepare activities and workshops and also the afternoon assembly, which is when the most people come. At the moment, neither the local nor the regional government has contacted them. Only a couple from the Local Police and two vans from the National Police are roaming around because, for the moment, it is an occupation of public roads. “If this starts to hurt those who govern, I suppose they will contact us,” Álex surmises.
Javi (35 years old) also camped from the beginning. He is currently preparing for an opposition and even though he is already over thirty he has no choice but to share a flat. He lives in Benimaclet and feels privileged because he considers his rent, 700 euros, fair. “But on the upper floor, where I have three rooms, they have taken out five and are renting them for 450 euros each; in total, about 2,000 euros,” he explains.
“The apartments for sale are taken by foreign capital and the alternative they give us is to rent, but with the problem of touristification it is difficult because landlords want to make the most of their investments,” he denounces. “There are people who accumulate properties and show no scruples with the prices, and on the part of the Administrations there is not enough supply, there is no public alternative to what is happening,” he laments.
A few minutes pass after 10 in the morning and in the last hour representatives of different citizen groups have been arriving at the square because a rumor has spread on social networks that the camp was going to be evacuated. Carlos Rodríguez (70 years old) has come to support them. He belongs to the Iaioflautas Valencia movement and considers the fight for housing a very necessary and intergenerational issue. “It is not just a question of young people, it is a question of the entire society, which cannot allow increasingly expensive rents in a context of low salaries.”
The most important thing, Carlos suggests, would be to have a public housing stock for rent, expropriating, for example, the Sareb apartments and also those held by vulture funds, and selling them at affordable prices. “They say that young people have more things now than before, that they have a lot of leisure, but many have salaries of 700 or 800 euros or have two jobs,” he says. This elderly person lives in the Benimaclet neighborhood and there they are renting an old apartment there, with three or four bedrooms, for 1,300 or 1,400 euros, he says. “And I’m not just talking about young people but about conventional families,” he adds.
Maribel (61 years old) has the day off, she has heard that they could vacate the camp and she has gone to the square to support them and ask them if they need anything. “I have a house but it doesn’t matter, it’s all very embarrassing. Everyone has the right to housing, to be indoors, as my mother said. In my neighborhood, El Botánico, people are leaving for other areas because the rent has become very expensive. But they move and they find that the prices are the same,” he points out. Maribel finds the transformation of many ground floor apartments into tourist apartments scandalous. “Now we are experiencing another bubble and governments have to bet on public housing because speculation is brutal.” Nor does he understand that an officially protected apartment is no longer public and speculation can be made with it after a few years.
María Alandes, the Mataobras —he has been denouncing the proliferation of tourist apartments in all neighborhoods for years—he goes to the campers to ask them what they need. She was one of the organizers of Saturday’s protest in the Valencian capital. “We are very happy with the result. The demonstration is not the end but the beginning of something and we are going to insist until our demands are heard,” he points out.
Bru (29 years old), a person trans non-binary, tells of the problems she has finding a home. In addition to the usual high prices due to touristification or speculative movements, he explains, there are landlords who are transphobic and make it more difficult. “When they see me they don’t even interview me,” says Bru, who thanks to the support of his family has been able to overcome these difficulties many times. But there are other people who are not so lucky. “We intend for the camp to be indefinite and we know that with a PP and Vox government (in the City Council) they will try to evict us but we will try to resist. We really want to continue, we want to achieve a second 15-M,” he adds.
Jorge Ramos (38 years old) is a professor of Contemporary History at the University of Valencia and today he is in the square. For years he was supporting the 15-M in 2011, also the Valencian Spring movement, and last April to the camping trip for Palestine, the first that took place in Spain. “We can never stop fighting for a better world and it is very exciting to see young people and not so young people participating in the assemblies,” he points out. This professor believes that camping is a protest perfectly compatible with 99% of society. “We are going to try to maintain the campaign as long as possible and extend it to other cities, in addition to being compatible with other types of protests and demands, such as the rent strike. We want prices to be capped and vulture funds to be expropriated because they are expelling us from our cities,” he concludes.
The Government delegate in the Valencian Community, Pilar Bernabé, has highlighted that the camping is taking place peacefully and, as long as it continues like this, the presence of the National Police is only “preventive”. The president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, has conveyed his “understanding, solidarity and empathy” to the people camped in the Town Hall square. “They are absolutely right,” he acknowledged, while emphasizing that “they finally have a government that is taking measures eight years after an unjustifiable collapse by the previous Botànic Government.” The opposition, PSPV and Compromís, have demanded that the state Housing law be applied and rental prices be capped.
