The Justice has decided to halt the eviction of the elderly couple from their home in Argana, which the Church sold to a company in its day. This was explained by the former president of the Argana Alta neighborhood association, Andrés Medina, who pointed out that Sinforiano Lemes, 90, and Pilar Callero, 87, will not be evicted after all.
Medina has indicated that the judge has decided this,after the vicar general of the Diocese of the Canary Islands, Hipólito Cabrera, sent to the Courts the document in which the company's commitment to relocate or compensate the families who occupied these homes is recorded. "We had been asking for this document for a long time and it has finally appeared in some archives and the Justice has halted the eviction," Medina insisted.
In the document that has appeared "now" and to which La Voz has had access, the company acquires several commitments with the Diocese of the Canary Islands regarding these homes and their occupants. Specifically, with respect to the homes on Palacio Valdés Street, numbers 2 and 8, the company "will respect and allow the current occupants of the same, to continue using the homes until their death", as established in this agreement, signed before a notary. However, it also states that the company may relocate them "to another home of equal quality and surface area", "also until their death".
Regarding the rest of the homes that make up this property, the document established that the company "will negotiate the eviction with each of the occupants upon payment of the compensation that the parties agree on". In addition, the company must allow the occupants to remain in their homes "for a minimum period of one year, this being a reasonable time for them to find new accommodation".
The vicar, "surprised" to find the document
In the letter that the vicar general of the Diocese of the Canary Islands sent to the judge this week, he explains that, "motivated by the news that appeared continuously in the social media", he began to search the archives of the Bishopric and in the parish of San Ginés, in Arrecife, in order to find "elements that could contribute to clarifying the facts".
In this letter, he admits that he has been "surprised" to find an agreement or "private document" signed then by the parish priest of San Ginés, Antonio Perera, representing the Diocese of the Canary Islands, and the company that acquired the land. "In this document, the commitments that the company made to the third parties who at that time occupied the property built on the farm precariously were agreed upon," the vicar general states in the letter to the judge.
Hipólito Cabrera concludes by pointing out that, considering that this private document is "of great interest for clarifying the issue of evictions", he therefore delivers it to the company "which is supposed to have the other copy of the agreement", to the representatives of the families who may be evicted and to the judge who is handling this case, who after receiving the document has decided to halt the eviction of the elderly couple, which was to take place this Friday morning.
"An agony of seven long years"
The Platform of People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) has sent a statement in which it assures that "together we can" halt evictions and in this case it has demonstrated it "once again thanks to the mobilization of all the citizens of Lanzarote". The PAH has recalled the "long delays" that the Bishopric has given when it has been asked for the document of commitment to relocate or compensate these families. "Finally, and in the face of citizen pressure and the discredit that it entailed, it has provided the Court with the aforementioned document that did exist and was signed in 2007," he indicated.
"The church remembered where it kept it the day before the eviction and only when it saw that an entire town was taking to the streets to prevent an injustice from being committed and that its image at a national level was going to be ruined," the platform criticized, which pointed out that the Church will have to "respond and clarify" why it has made "these elderly people suffer since they sold the land in 2006, at which time the company began to instigate them to leave the home".
The PAH has assured that the elderly couple, formed by Sinforiano and Pilar, has been suffering "an agony of 7 long years, because these people traded with the good will of a neighbor who gave the land for social housing, not for the Church to speculate". "What kind of conscience does someone have who can avoid the suffering of two elderly people and what they are trying to do is prolong it for a purely economic interest?", the platform has asked.
Eviction this Friday of another neighbor of these houses
The PAH has recalled that, despite the good news about the elderly couple, this Friday it is planned to carry out an eviction in these houses, that of Luis Manuel Torres Guillén, 56 years old. This man, with the help of the PAH, managed to get the judicial commission to provisionally suspend his eviction, but only until this Friday.
From this group they have insisted that Justice "is not the same for everyone" and this neighbor, "a man who suffers from heart disease", will be "thrown out of his house". "His eviction will not stop. He is not entitled to a home because he has not appeared in the media. We are not going to allow it. Tomorrow's call is still standing and Luis, like his neighbors, will sleep in his house tomorrow and not on the street. The fight is the same, the right to housing, raising our voices and saying enough is enough. Together We Can", the PAH has defended.
