Two houses rise from the vacant lot next to the old road, built by the families that settled there. It was a bare property that in the original plans – from the ’80s – still appears as ten commercial premises. Before the occupation of August 1992, they say, there was nothing but grasslands and the skeletons of unfinished houses, a perfect haven for crime.
That day, thirty-two families took over the unfinished work that the construction companies Edificadora SA and Vetyl SA left on the side of the old road from La Paz (Canelones) and the phenomenon did not go unnoticed by the local newspaper “Hoy”.
“They have been abandoned for twelve years. We are all working people, good people. The rents they ask for cannot be paid. Our salaries are low,” said a neighbor.
Photo: Leonardo Carreno.
Jardines de Viale, housing complex in La Paz, Canelones
The structures passed over the years from the Mortgage Bank to the Ministry of Housing, and from there to the trust of the National Housing Agency (ANV). This block of unfinished houses that were taking shape, together with another contiguous block of 35 more houses that the construction companies did leave “habitable”, make up the so-called complex Jardines de Viale, which has a delicate problem that has been on the political agenda for at least two decades and today is leading the discussion in the ANV board.
The fact that Block H003 has the door locked with a chain and padlock, all its windows closed, the front gate leaning forward, and a small garbage dump at the entrance is one of the central reasons for the tussle between neighbors, the ruling party, and the ANV opposition. , and even the municipality (of the Broad Front). Fabiana Domínguez lived in that house for almost 30 years, even though she was in the name of one Vicente Nelson Sosa, to whom she received a telegram on June 13, 2019.
In that name there was a million-dollar mortgage debt, a situation in which at least other ten units of Jardines de Viale with pending auction and with social reports that request “the defense of the auction by the ANV to later regularize the occupants”reported to The Observer the representative of the Broad Front on the board, Verónica Dodera.
Photo: Leonardo Carreno.
Jardines de Viale, housing complex in La Paz, Canelones
The situation responds to houses that in the ’80s the construction companies awarded in advance and that, when the work was not completed, they relocated those who had a purchase contract in the other, more finished block.
“I entered on March 12, 1983, because they had promised housing for the 1st. I already had the eviction, so I had to enter or enter. So I spoke with Mr. García Rebuffo, owner of Edificadora SA, who gave me permission and told me I moved there”, said, for example, José Gaetán, one of the first occupants who went to narrate his adventures to the Senate Housing Commission 23 years ago. There he had to put windows, doors, make a cesspool and stock up on the light of the work.
Meanwhile, unfinished but foreclosed homes that would be occupied a decade later continued to accumulate mortgages in the names of owners who did not necessarily live there. This was the case of Fabiana Domínguez, from Block H003, which would be auctioned off on October 30, 2020 as the only way to cut the property’s debt.
At the suggestion of the auctioneer Walter Imbert –according to Domínguez herself in the Senate Housing committee weeks ago– she asked a lender for $100,000, but the house went for more than $1 million. The base price was $63,000 –according to what is available online–, but it was bought by an individual who offered above that.
“He told me that he needed it for a sister who had a disabled husband. We never reached an agreement or anything. I had to go live with my daughter as an attaché. This cannot be for life, but I am retired and I cannot hold a rent of $15,000. The house is still unoccupied,” he told the senators.
Dodera, the director of the FA in the ANV, raised the dilemma at the beginning of the month in the directory: “My particular interest was if there was any definition or study of the situation so that these cases would not happen, because in any case the majority of the families have social reports (from the ANV) that merit credit defense, with situations of vulnerability and up to 27 years of occupation,” he said.
“As an institution that should be dealing with social housing, how can we keep these units and not pass them on to a third party that, based on real estate speculation, surely does so as an investment,” said Dodera.
Photo: Leonardo Carreno.
Jardines de Viale, housing complex in La Paz, Canelones
In those days, a new auction scheduled for March 31 was approaching, but an appeal in the courts by the family ended up postponing the auction for 90 days. The extension occurred the same day of the execution after a meeting of the residents with the president of the ANV, Klaus Mill Von Metzen (Cabildo Abierto) and the vice president Gustavo Borsari (National Party).
“The only way that the ANV has to cut a mortgage is the auction, which the Agency defends to keep the house and regularize with the person offering the rent and the possibility of keeping the house,” the council member told The Observer. Mill Von Metzen affirmed that after the accountability of 2021 the agency can “defend the auctions beyond the appraisal value”, which in his opinion “is a much more powerful tool” so that the family is not left on the street if an interested third party offers.
“In this case (from Jardines de Viale) they will make an effort to defend the shot”anticipated the president of the ANV.
Extrajudicial executions are not something new, the residents themselves acknowledge, although they claim that since the extension of the term for the prescription of mortgages – which paradoxically the LUC later forced to vote urgently before some US$ 400 million was at stake – the arrival of the cedulones began to accelerate.
Fear of these movements led since the end of last year to establish contacts with Dodera, senators Sebastián Sabini and Óscar Andrade (both from Canelones), the legal office of the University of the Republic led by Juan Ceretta and Fucvam advisers, among which distinguishes the lawyer Valeria Spain.
Evictions
Meanwhile, the ANV faces another problem associated with the evictions, with a Colombian family that is about to be released. The neighbors denounce that due to being unaware of the Uruguayan law, they did not respect the deadlines and that now they are facing the final stage of the eviction. “The family remains on the street because they did not find a solution,” denounces Maira Lamadrid, one of the neighbors.
Jennifer Presa has her two young children and knows that she will walk the same path. Her parents were among the first occupants and she grew up in Jardines de Viale. The neighbor assures that despite a verbal agreement established with the ANV in 2012 in which they committed to a two-year lease with an option to buy if they were good payers, the changes in administration changed the rules of the game.
“Due to what has happened with other families and fear, many neighbors signed the lease, but others have not done so because we believe that another solution can be found. We have lived there for thirty years,” the woman told the Senate. “Now I am raising my children and seeing myself on the street seems illogical to me. The eleven-year-old constantly asks me where we are going if we have to leave. He goes to school and has in mind that we have to go and that, We literally stayed on the street, like all the neighbors who live in the complex,” he said.
Mistrust with the administration marks decades of twists and turns, and complaints about desk responses are a constant among the neighbors. The director of the FA insists in these cases that “come closer because they can regularize, there are even very low rents”.
Contrary to the case of mortgages that lead to auctions, eviction is the most drastic path taken by residents who are not in order.
“All the residents have been asked to approach the Agency to regularize the situation, this is what we are doing with all the complexes managed by ANV,” the agency’s president said in this regard.
“Here there is a series of communications and, since there is no response, the situation continues to worsen. At that moment is when the families really come closer. I do not want to say that it has never been managed, what always comes is at the last moment , to the eviction, that’s when the family approaches,” explained the hierarch, and warned: “It gets to an extreme that shouldn’t be reached. It tightens its grip and goes to eviction, and that’s when it fixes the majority”.
