"Housing for All" to protest evictions at Czech Labor Ministry

A new initiative called Housing for All (Bydlení pro všechny) is responding to the ongoing scandal in Ústí nad Labem, where people who once lived in a building that became unfit for habitation because the landlord let it deteriorate are now unable to find any normal, permanent housing. In the Předlice neighborhood, where the building in question is located, almost 30 other apartment buildings are also considered unsafe by structural engineers. The risk, therefore, is that more people will be evicted in future through no fault of their own – and no one knows where they will go.

The town is refusing to take care of these residents, even though the law on municipalities requires them to, and the landlords have no substitute accommodation to offer them (as the landlord of the one evicted building has already confirmed). Below is a full translation of the statement issued by this initiative.

Statement of the Housing for All initiative (Bydlení pro všechny)

We are protesting against the current practice of evicting Romani families with small children into residential hotels that are not suitable for them and the practice of splitting families up so that women and children live in shelters separated from their adult male family members. Right now we are following the scandal in the Předlice neighborhood of Ústí nad Labem, which follows on the heels of the scandal on Přednádraží street in Ostrava.

These Romani families with small children were initially evicted into a residential hotel and now the families are to be split up, with the women and children only moving into shelters. Neither the authorities nor the nonprofits are capable of ensuring ordinary housing for these Romani families.

We want to change this. On Monday 28 January, starting at 14:00, we will hold a protest event in front of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

Don’t let them end up on the street

Only a few days are left until the predominantly Romani tenants now in the residential hotel in the Krásné Březno neighborhood of Ústí nad Labem will end up freezing on the street. Approximately 100 people, many of them families with small children, are facing a hopeless situation. The residential hotel into which the town evicted them from the building in the Předlice neighborhood is scheduled to close by 1 February.

During the past few months the town has not been able to propose a different solution other than sticking the women and children into a shelter and leaving the men to fend for themselves on the street. The owner of the building in which the residential hotel is located is the developer and investment company CPI, owned by Radovan Vítek, one of the five wealthiest people in the country. If the tenants are evicted it will result in broken families, homeless men, and an empty building.

We reject this. On 28 January, three days prior to the planned eviction of the residential hotel, we will gather in front of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. We will go ask how it is possible that there are not enough apartments available for the socially disadvantaged and how it is possible that people are making money on poverty. We will go there to ask who is responsible.

We will meet up on 28 January at 14:00 in front of the ministry at Na Poříčním právu 1/376 in Prague. More information is on the Facebook page of the Housing for All initiative (Bydlení pro všechny).