Czech NGO wants to buy buildings from which Romani tenants were evicted
The Life Together (Vzájemné soužití) NGO, led by Kumar Vishwanathan, wants to buy buildings on Přednádraží Street in Ostrava which are now going up for auction. News server Lidovky.cz reports that the NGO’s aim is to make it possible for the Romani tenants who were evicted from the properties to return to their homes.
Two years ago the authorities announced to the residents of Přednádraží Street that they would all have to move out by midnight of the following day. The announcement was followed by the tenants’ struggle against that decision and a long-lasting effort to save at least one of the buildings.
Ultimately, however, almost all of the residents of Přednádraží Street ended up moving into hygienically substandard, overcrowded, overpriced, socially inconvenient residential hotels. "They took away the home where we had been living for several decades. Now for two years we have been moving from one apartment to the next, we don’t know what will happen next month, and we basically have nothing," summarized Ms Helena, one of the long-term residents there.
The last occupants left Přednádraží Street approximately one year ago. Ever since then, the question of what to do with the buildings remains unresolved.
The buildings have not sold, so creditors of the Domy Přednádraží company have now proposed they be auctioned off. The starting price for the actual houses and the land under them is around CZK 1.5 million (EUR 54 000).
"We would like to buy the entire complex," Vishwanathan told news server Lidovky.cz, who wants the original occupants to be able to return to the neighborhood. He is greatly concerned by the legal wrangling over an unresolved dispute as to the ownership of the devastated sewerage lines serving the buildings.
Vishwanathan also believes there could be problems with the adjacent plots of land, which belong to Czech Railways. "Only the buildings and the land under them are for sale, the rest belongs to the railroad," he said.
