On Sunday, 18 March at the Café v lese in Prague, a public discussion took place about recent events concernign the housing situation on Přednádraží street in Ostrava and in the Předlice quarter of Ústí nad Labem. The discussion was followed by a benefit concert by the bands Fakné, Potmě, Čokovoko and Vobezdud, called "Number 8 Lives" (Osmička žije!) Building number 8 is the last residential building on Přednádraží street that is still occupied, and its occupants need financial and other support. The benefit was organized by the SOS Přednádraží initiative and the discussion was co-organized by the Housing for All (Bydlení pro všechny) initiative.
Personal stories of courage
Both Přednádraží street and the Předlice quarter are ghettos experiencing very similar stories. Their scenarios differ from one another only in minor aspects and the challenge they pose to society is identical. Each story is now at a different phase of development. Where are they heading and where will they end up?
"There are 30 fighters left on Přednádraží street out of the 250 original residents," said the youngest guest in the discussion, 21-year-old Imrich Horvát, a Romani activist and resident of Přednádraží street. Horvát said he sees value in his experiences so far in that he has learned to go after what he wants. "We were taught that if someone told us ‘you can’t be here’ we just packed our bags and left. We didn’t know how to defend ourselves, that it can actually work. Then people from Prague started coming to visit us, from all over the country, even from abroad, and thanks to their help, we saw that we can stand our ground. The officials came to us on 17 March and told us we have to move out – and as you see, we are living there still."
In another part of the country, several thousand people are living in the Předlice quarter, where the plague of trafficking in poverty is ubiquitous and several families with small children live in buildings that are hazardous to human life, as they are in danger of imminent collapse.
"From the start of this scandal, I was surprised by the heavy-handedness of the municipality. Now that the catastrophe of Předlice has become so obvious, I believed the town would finally do something, but the leadership is just doing the same thing they have for the last 10 years," said Miroslav Brož of the Konexe association, another guest panelist in the discussion.
Both of these stories are taking place against a background of non-transparent practices on the part of the town leadership, involvement of mafia structures, a lack of interest on the part of some property owners, and the great interest of some real estate developers. Some local nonprofit organizations are also involved in activities that have disturbing results.
The first act of both stories took place without any humanitarian aid being offered. "I wouldn’t wish what we experienced on anyone and I will remember who helped us and stood by us until the end of my days… I would never have believed that white people would fight for us black people," said Iveta Jaslová, another guest of the discussion. A mother of five, she was forced to move her family out of their home in Předlice into a gym and then into a residential hotel. She made her statement with tears in her eyes in response to the question "What did you learn during this whole affair?" Today her entire family (the Červeňák extended family) has good housing thanks to help from Housing for All and Konexe, as well as the financial aid contributed by many smaller and larger donors from the majority society.
We couldn’t have done it without them
Ondřej Slačálek, the moderator of the discussion, said the most essential thing was that the Přednádraží street residents want to fight their eviction. He recalled something one of the residents said that stuck in his memory: "You’d have to shoot us first to get us to leave Přednádraží!" No shots have been fired, but great pressure has been put upon the residents to move: Cold, fear, hunger, stress and uncertainty.
"We were supposed to end up on the street from one day to the next, the town was only offering us residential hotels as substitute accommodation – one room per family for a crazy amount of rent – but we didn’t want to leave. That brought us together, in that moment we understood that those who live on Přednádraží street are a family, and from that moment we fought," said Imrich Horvát.
Dozens of people have had to face up to all of this and the publicizing of their stories is just one peek at the topic of trafficking in poverty. The dismal housing situation is not just a problem of the most impoverished, but is slowly threatening the middle class as well.
Slačálek asked what has changed. For Imrich, the admission was simple: "I became an activist! We learned how to fight. Before this I just kept my head down, but that has changed!" Iveta agreed with him and both of them confirmed the meaningfulness of the support provided by activists.
Pupuš, an activist and squatter from the Cibulka squat (http://cibulka.squat.net/) who was the fourth guest of the panel discussion, expressed her personal concern over whether the steps taken by activists in these cases will be beneficial from a long-term perspective. She is uncertain today because she doesn’t know how these situations will develop or whether they will be safe for everyone involved. However, the similar testimonies and enormous thanks expressed by the residents of Přednádraží and Předlice confirmed that they welcomed the activists’ support and see it as necessary.
Let’s fight together
The first response to the discussion from the audience came from attorney Klára Samková, who spoke of the need for a thorough prosecution to insist that the laws of the Czech Republic be upheld and that people’s rights be asserted. Samková said that Ústí nad Labem and the Building Works Authority have committed offenses that must be discussed and corrected through the proper channels. In her view, the town should have expropriated the owners and repaired the buildings that had long been abandoned and had become hazardous to human life. She spoke about the formalistic proceedings and the absolute lack of will on the part of the state and the town to find a solution and demanded a systemic procedure: "We are encountering things of a systemic nature and the system can and must be defeated only through a systemic approach."
Others also spoke of the fact that the problem is systemic in Ostrava as well. František Kostlán of the ROMEA association said: "The quarter of Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz is pushing Romani residents out of its territory completely openly, without any concern, and not just from Přednádraží street, but also from Palackého street and from the residential hotel on Božkova street. The municipality of Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz says Romani people must leave the area so it can be ‘cultivated’. A councilor for the town of Ostrava, Semerák, said the quarter had become a garbage can for ‘inadaptables’ and there is a need to attract ‘adaptable’ inhabitants back there. He bought one of the buildings on Palackého street and evicted the Romani tenants from it. I know a lady who had an open-ended lease there, but she was threatened intensively, for a long time, that her children would be killed unless she moved out, so she did."
Kostlán also mentioned the need to augment everyday, ordinary social aid by activating Romani people: "When putting pressure on the system, it is good when the people who are afflicted or pushed out have someone to lean on, someone who will speak up and stand up for them and help them realize that they themselves can do a great deal, that they can return at least part of their lives to their own control. At the same time, it is essential that they not end up on the street, and that is something that NGOs involved in ordinary social work can make sure doesn’t happen. In that sense, in my opinion all of the NGOs in Ostrava and in Ústí have complemented one another well, both those involved in ordinary social work and those providing Romani people with the defense we have mentioned, despite the fact that each type of organization does not recognize the activities of the other."
One theme that crystallized during the discussion was that of systematic social work by local organizations versus immediate aid provided by activists to people during a crisis. These two paths are very often perceived as being at odds with one another, perhaps because activists publicly criticize the insufficient activity of specific nonprofits, who respond to such criticism as if it were more toxic than a helpful willingness to discuss the issues."It’s not enough to sound off about how everything is bad, we need to find a common way forward, a way to correct this, a way to work together," said Markus Pape, a pro-Romani activist with years of experience who also participated in the discussion.
Another topic raised was the activation of Romani people in general. "The Nazis who organize these marches are fewer in number than the Romani people, but they are very well-organized. I believe the main reason – now the only reason – they are better-organized is economic. If we had money, we could fill buses full of people and travel to the end of the world if need be, but these communities are very poor and can’t go anywhere," said Míra Brož.
Imrich Horvát added: "We were fortunate enough to have someone help us. As long as everyone else doesn’t know they can defend themselves too, we will never influence anything." Iveta Jaslová then added her view: "Let’s all defend ourselves together, let’s not take this lying down!"
Causes, or searching for a scapegoat
At the start of the debate it seemed complicated to open up the topic of who is to blame for this problem and what has caused it, but during the second half clear opinions were expressed by the audience, as well as copious arguments that met with general agreement. "Someone’s just making money on this. They’re doing it as a clearly financial proposition. In Ostrava it’s developers or investors, people who have enormous assets all over the country and who will keep on doing this as long as it makes them money. However, once it is established that they could be prosecuted for dispossessing and evicting people, then we will move forward. They must be made to see that this behavior won’t pay off worth a damn. Unfortunately, we’re not there yet," said a member of the audience.
The debate them moved to the topic of strategies of resistance and other audience members raised their hands.
"We’re talking about developing pressure on the authorities to seek a systemic resolution. We want the authorities to fulfill their obligations – but why aren’t they fulfilling them in the first place? Why don’t they do what they are supposed to? Motions must be filed against them for investigation of these corrupt practices!" said Mr Emil, a homeless man living at the Cibulka squat who thanked the squatters for letting him live there. The audience applauded.
I’d like to be an optimist, but…
"For a month and a half we worked on getting them to turn the power on, but now we’ve learned that it can’t be – that’s another shock. The Building Works Authority said it will not open up the buildings for residency until the chimneys are repaired, and that will cost around a quarter of a million crowns. Momentarily there are people living on Přednádraží street without electricity or gas, so they are using stoves… The main problem is that, for example, when we focus on the roof, we find out that a cistern that we thought was working isn’t working. The repairs are endless… It would be a really big miracle if … [he is sadly quiet]… well, we know now that they are going to build a four-meter wall to separate us from the rest of the neighborhood and … [there is a moment of hopelessness] … people are still living there who have nowhere else to go and who really will not move into the catastrophic conditions at the residential hotels," said Irmich Horvát.
The government’s social housing concept was also discussed, which includes the notion that residential hotels will either augment or completely replace ordinary social housing. "Those residential hotels will feature restricted hours of operation, will be monitored by CCTV systems, and nonprofit social workers will act as guardians there," Míra Brož claimed. "Social housing is supposed to be a mechanism facilitating housing for people who have no chance of leasing ordinary accommodation. In Ústí nad Labem, a two-bedroom rental apartment costs maybe CZK 5 000 per month. That is affordable for Romani people, but as a result of discrimination on the housing market, no one will rent such a place to them. Instead of fighting this discrimination, are we going to tolerate this segregation into residential hotels, etc., and call it social housing?"
The onerous topic of the fight for equality and human rights and for clearly drawing the line on racism was discussed. Some people who were previously active in the fight against discrimination in the 1990s said they are resigned to it today. According to one participant, people have the feeling that racism doesn’t exist here as long as thousands of Nazi are not marching in the streets daily. Naturally many of those present viewed this as mistaken and expressed their desires to establish this topic on the main political and societal scene, applauding the idea of getting it into the public broadcasting media and onto the front pages of the leading dailies.
"Building 8 has learned to fight, and we would like to hold a Romani congress in Ostrava and to travel together to support other Romani people elsewhere," Imrich Horvát said. The more experienced and respected vajda, Jožka Miker of Krupka, expressed his understanding for the young man’s ideas: "There is a need to first unify the Romani people in each village, each small town, and each city. That is our task. Wherever we go, whether we are black or white, let’s get people to communicate with one another and reach agreement."
