How People Face Evictions

“It was around 9 o’clock in the morning on 9 March 2005 … they got there in three or four trucks, not only police forces but also armed civilians. The children were very afraid and we women were on our own with the men out at work. They threatened us, took out all of our belongings, knocked them over, took the best things and destroyed our homes. We took refuge in a church, where we stayed for two or three months.” (Yasmin Feliz)

“It was around 7 o’clock in the morning. They came with great violence. I was three months pregnant. I resisted by using the gas cylinder to keep them from opening the door but I had my small son with me and they threw a tear gas cylinder through the window. They threw me on the floor and my son nearly suffocated. I lost the baby. They took all of our best things, the washing machine, timber and zinc (roof). They came without giving any notice.” (Cristina Alcantara)

These two quotes are from accounts by women in Santo Domingo (the capital of the Dominican Republic) of how they were evicted. This book notes that accounts such as these are common – and each year, millions of children, women and men are forced from their homes. But it also describes how many people-led organizations and movements have successfully challenged evictions and helped develop alternatives. The core of the book comprises case studies of people-based initiatives that have struggled against eviction, and in some instances have secured rights to adequate housing, legal security of tenure and freedom from the threat of eviction. These case studies are in city centres (Buenos Aires and Porto Alegre), in a historic district (in Karachi), in villages that have been absorbed by city expansion (Hangzhou), in spontaneous settlements that were once on the city periphery (Santo Domingo, Durban and Istanbul) and on agricultural lands in Egypt. Each case study was prepared by the people themselves, or in some instances assisted by local research teams that sought to give the grassroots organizations and movements freedom to document how they had been addressing evictions.
The case studies are complemented by chapters authored by the editors that look across the case studies. They include a discussion of the reasons for the threat of eviction (often for transport infrastructure or enterprises serving the city government’s aspirations to be a global city) and the role of land mafias and corruption and the various ways in which people fight evictions (usually a combination of public protest and barricades, legal battles, negotiations and getting support from beyond the neighbourhood). There is also a discussion of the casualties, including murders, torture and the imprisonment of leaders or simply of those who resist. And a discussion of the role of women in these struggles and of the inadequate offers of compensation – typically where resettlement is offered, the value of what is offered is far lower than what they lose and location is far away from the city (and their livelihoods). There are also examples of promised compensation not being paid and of governments refusing to discuss the solutions collectively – thus coercing individual households into accepting inadequate relocation. At worst, the evicted groups are even forced to demolish their own homes or are charged high fees if they do not do so.