Gabriela, the woman who started a protest action this Monday due to the lack of rentals in front of the Arrecife City Council, has lifted her camp this Thursday and has returned to the house for which she has an eviction order on June 2. In addition, the woman had to be attended in the afternoon by the health services for a small faint she suffered after reading the statements of the owners of the house, who assured La Voz that she had not paid a rent of 300 euros for a year. "This was what killed her," said the councilor of Podemos in the capital's Consistory, Leticia Padilla, who has been accompanying her during this week and who has denied the version of the owners, assuring that "the Court paper says that she owes September and October", and "in September they refused to collect the money".
"She left the clinic at 8:30 p.m., she is tired, first because of the four days she has spent in front of the City Council, she is also scared because she has an eviction date within a week and there are no alternatives, no housing, no rent, nothing," Padilla said about the situation in which Gabriela is now in statements for Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero. In this sense, she has clarified that "they have been looking for a rental for 9 months" and have not found one.
In relation to the statements of Jessica, daughter of the owner of the house, Padilla has stated that "Gabriela has never messed with them, nor did she name them, because she is very clear that on June 2 she has to leave and even so what does she have to do, shut up?". Likewise, the councilor of Podemos has explained that she was surprised when they said that Gabriela left the apartment destroyed. "The house is impeccable", she stressed, adding that even when they returned to the house they discovered that "her student daughter, after high school, painted the walls to leave it better than it is now".
"They insulted them, they called them 'the gypsies'"
For her part, Padilla has pointed out another series of problems that Gabriela had with the owners of the house from which they are going to evict her. "They insulted them, they called them 'the gypsies', and they have done everything to make them leave," she declared, pointing out that she understands that they want to recover it "because that apartment is theirs, but we are not going to forget the human issue."
"They have shown up in the following months to collect" after not having collected the money, Padilla has assured, who has highlighted that they are "owners who charge in cash." "We are not very clear about whether they declared their rent," said the councilor, who also pointed out that Gabriela "had her water cut off, her electricity cut off, so they had to go to the Police." "The situation is not easy," she asserted and added that "they did not show up at the house to collect and this situation suits them very well."
The councilor of Podemos has pointed out that Gabriela is affected by the statements of Jessica, the owner's daughter and because "people think that she is the worst and think badly of her and on social networks people are usually very cruel and usually judge and opine without knowing anything" when "all she was doing was claiming the right to housing." "When she stood in front of the City Council requesting a rental, she never thought that they would come to comment on what she eats, what she doesn't eat, what she earns, what she doesn't earn... and all she was doing was claiming the right to housing." "We all have someone around us in a desperate situation of looking for an apartment and there isn't one, there are no houses," Padilla assured.
"The City Council is not doing anything"
"Do we leave them on the street, an elderly lady, who was crying in her wheelchair this Thursday, that student girl who sees her mother fighting for her and that there is no solution?", Padilla asked, who also pointed out that "the most comfortable thing for the Arrecife City Council would have been for Gabriela to move into a squat like many are doing, with fear, in silence", "choose to live on the margins of society, choose to live illegally." "She has not been asked to be put at the top of a list to pass over people who are worse off than her, she is asking for a simple rental," Padilla stressed in relation to Gabriela's demand to the Municipal Consistory.
"She wants a real solution and I believe that given the situation in which the municipality of Arrecife and all of Lanzarote in general find themselves, that they continue to say in the media that the issue of housing is not their responsibility, it is the responsibility of the Government of the Canary Islands, is that they have not understood anything of what is happening in their municipality," said the councilor of Podemos. "I don't know how they can get so cold in a situation of this type, how they can completely wash their hands and say that the issue of housing is the responsibility of the Government of the Canary Islands," she added.
In addition, in response to the mayor of Arrecife, Eva de Anta, who assured that Gabriela did not want to go to Social Services because they treated her badly on one occasion, Padilla stressed that they will go because there is only one week left, and that what they are going to do "is go and knock on all the doors so that they make us the relevant reports to demonstrate that Gabriela is not entitled to any type of aid and that even so on the 2nd she will be seen on the street." "And that the City Council is not doing anything," she pointed out.
"There is a solution, then a simple municipal rental service, as they have in Barcelona or the Alquila Plan, as they have in Madrid, or in other places in the Canary Islands where it is working, where the City Council gives guarantees to the owners and tenants wonderfully," said the councilor of Podemos as a solution for Gabriela. "It's as easy as getting to work," she stressed.
