The Ministry of the Interior has updated its data on the occupations of homes that forced, during the first four months of 2023, an action by any of the police forces. The figures put the dimensions of the phenomenon in their fair proportion. There were 5,266, more than 40 a day. With a relative decline since 2021 (when a thousand more were registered) and 11.8% compared to the previous year. Those who want to make demagogy based on these data are mistaken, as are those who try to downplay it or link it only to housing occupations or those that are the consequence of an eviction not carried out. Most of the people who cannot afford a home do not occupy the homes of others and many of those who do occupy them do not do so solely or mainly out of necessity, but for many other reasons, from ideological to religious. linked to criminal behavior.
The extreme right tries time and time again to warn us of the supposed risk of finding the home occupied by a stranger, with impunity and without the possibility of eviction. While certain groups linked to anti-capitalism they want us to believe that all occupations are for vulnerable families. According to data from the State Attorney General’s Office, 99.15% of these cases are occupations of real estate that are neither first nor second residence, and only 0.85% are raids on inhabited homes (and in those cases, the action police is diligent). But as certain as that is that there is another type of concealed occupation based on the systematic non-payment of rents or mortgage installments with the aggravating circumstance of refusing aid from social services. The casuistry is very diverse and to focus on one reality or another is to ignore the reality of the problem.
in the past elections The alarm speech before the phenomenon of the occupation was brandished by the options of the extreme right, with demands for summary answers. From the extreme left, the focus could be on the supposed vulnerability of all the occupants, something that does not correspond to the facts either. But responding to this discourse only relativizing its extension, or its significance in the face of the much more pressing problems of access to housing, or maintaining that perpetuating these situations of occupation is a lesser evil or even an adequate response to them, is not enough. Each of these occupations is not a solution, but an expression of a failure, a symptom of the lack of a sustained social housing policy and the lack of emergency solutions to prevent homelessness. A problem that must be solved by municipalities, autonomous communities and the Government, without trusting, as an escape valve in the face of public inaction, that families without housing resources violate another right such as property (or even unless it becomes the object of criminal marketing). It is something that not only affects large holders but also small owners. AND denying it only makes offering that flag to the extreme rightwhich will use it without offering real alternatives and without any scruples. Or to the extreme left that pursues the derogation of that right to property, or at least to condition it. And there is still a matter to be clarified: why half of the occupations are located in Catalonia? Institutions must explain.