Black forces in a not so orange orange grove

When demolished, a home makes an awful sound. Yesterday it went on for hours, the slow demolition process of the second floor of the Dake home. Large yellow machines slowly crunched away at the building. Huge blocks of falling concrete demolishing the garden in the same go.
The people watching on helplessly. Their possessions, clothes, furniture, kids' schoolbooks etc. out in the dust.

Two years ago some 100 people barricaded themselves on the roof of the Dake home in Jaffa's Dake orange grove and prevented its demolition. Yesterday the Dake family were less, much less lucky, when Ron Huldai's municipality goons demolished their home under the "protection" of hundreds of blimp led ninja-style clad special forces policemen.

In the early hours masked policemen entered the Dake home and arrested the men of the family and told the family's women to start packing. Literally hundreds of policemen, special forces and border police blocked off all roads to the Dake grove and the close surroundings.

Whole streets were closed to the public, even to those living there and wishing to go back home. The operations were led from a special command tent where police men kept track of the ground forces by means of a camera studded blimp high up in the air.

To understand the true impact of the demolition of the Dake house is is important to back in history.

The Dake family were the proud owners of a huge orange grove prior to 1948, the Naqbe, just south of Jaffa. 

In the grove were the large family home, storage facilities, guard houses, a pump house etc.

After 1948 the family stayed on. They lived in the grove and over time, as the family expanded, more houses were added. 

The municipality did not bother to make a zoning plan for the grove, although it is on municipal territory. As a result, it is impossible to receive a building permit for anything, not even for repairing your house: as there are no zoning plan definitions for the area, there is no buroicratic procedure possible for getting a building permit.

Yet the Dakes, who own the land, needed homes, so they constructed those without a permit.

The municipality never provided any services in the grove, there are no roads, no waste disposal, no kinder garden (by now there are a few hundred people, including many children, living in the grove). The sewage system is horrid and floods every now and then and until a few years ago every winter the grove was flooded. Only after a young child drowned inside his home, the municipality did something about the flood drains.

The lack of a zoning plan has been going on for some 60 years now. The Dakes cannot build anything on their land and live in poverty. When they try to build the municipality arrives and destroys. The houses  are rebuilt, making use of cheap materials or recycling some of the rubble in the construction of the new house, as all know it is only a matter of time until the next demolition.

After the municipality took out a demolition order on the flat he built for his son, Moussa Dake decided to fight back. He lost in the Tel Aviv peace court, but won an incredible victory in the regional court, where the judge criticised the municipality for 60 years of planning neglect. The Dakes felt victorious and the verdict was f major importance as it had implications for many other areas in the country as well.

But the municipality appealed to the high court of justice and won. The verdict in this case was formalistic and did not even try to deal with the serious criticism and legal concerns of the regional court's verdict.

The Dakes appealed once more, but the municipality decided not to wait for the court's decision and yesterday, in spite of the request to wait until the verdict, the goons went about their ugly business.

Moussa had become a symbol and the legal fight he put up was being followed by many involved in planning and housing rights.

  

The crime of being poor as defined by the Tel Aviv municipality

Yafo Gimmel is located at the very southern end of Jaffa, almost Bat Yam. Nowhere close to any of the fancier locations much in request by the gentrifyers and real estate investors looking of yet another option to make a lot of quick money.

Long concrete blocks with many entrances, "shikunim" as we call them. No elevators, small box-like flats stacked one on top of the other. You always know what the neighbors are at, the walls are thin.

When Jaffa's lovely old buildings were demolished some 40-30 years ago, many of their Jewish inhabitants received public housing flats in the large estates of "Yafo Gimmel" and "Yafo Daled", thinking they had made the deal of their lifetime. No longer would they have to share the same kitchen and bathroom with several other families in Ajami's old crumbling mansions of pre-naqbe age. Instead they would have their own little kingdom with the unknown luxury of a private kitchen and shower. Very small, that's true, and not too well contructed, but it was their own, rented for a relatively low monthly fee from the public housing company.

Over time, those who did well moved out and new migrants from the ex-Soviet Union and very recently, Ethiopia, took their place. The public housing company sold them their flats for a thieving  very "reasonable"  price and all felt they, once more , had made a good deal; they had become home owners. 
Of course the tiny and by now quite old homes were (and are) heavily morgaged and the monthly payments weigh heavy on the population many of whom have become unemployed and dependent on ever shrinking social security payments or on minimum wages. Food isn't always secure. Medicine cannot always be bought when necessary. Very few children have all the school books they need, but at least their families own their own homes. And that gave many of the people living in the Yafo Gimmel's Saharon street a (false) sense of security.

The public housing company's maintenance standards had always been low (and that is an understatement) and the construction level of the buildings was less than shoddy to start with. And the poor homeowners pay all their money to meet with the morgage requirements, leaving very little for necessary home repairs.

Two years ago the municipality defined a large block in Saharon Street, with close to 100 flats devided over 10 entrances, as "dangerous" and the demanded the home owners carry out immediate extensive (and very expensive) repairwork to the crumbling structure.

In the past this sort of work would have been taken care of by the Neighborhood Renewal Project ("Shikum Shkunot" שיקום שכונות) and the inhabitants would have had to pay only part of the cost against a friendly loan certified by the project. Yet but the Neighborhood Renewal project was fazed out in Jaffa (well, officially it still exists, its total annual budget for all of Jaffa standing at 20.000 NIS for 2009 which is being used as a partial salary for some educational work in the center of Jaffa as far as i know) .

The inhabitants of the block did not carry out the necessary repairwork. They simply don't have the money to do so.

In addition, many of them simply don't speak the same language (Russian and Amharic are more popular here) and in any case it is difficult to organize such a large group of inhabitants (over 90 densely populated flats).

So the burocrats of the municipality thought they had a good solution. One that tends to work quite well in North Tel Aviv: a law suit. One that usually forces the refusenik home owner into compliance.

The Tel Aviv - Yafo municipality criminally sues every single adult inhabitant of the block!

"Criminal"? one wonders. Yes, not carrying out a repair order of this type is a criminal offence, as the criminally inclined homeowner endangers all those living in the building or passing near by. It might collapse if the repairs will not be carried out.

The option of criminally suing repair refusing home owners was made to force slum landlords into taking care of the buildings they own. That law was not made in order to abuse poor people who were tricked into building their homes from a public housing company that wanted to get rid of property on which they would have to spend much money. The real slum landlord is the public housing company (partially municipality owned) that made a lot of money selling the flats, instead of spending it in repairing those very same flats.

Another Ajami home demolished today

The terra coloured one story building at the corner of HaOgen and HaToren streets in Ajami, next to the "Hasan Arafe" school, housed an extended family. The father, who in the past led the struggle against the demolition plan of his home,  is currently imprisoned.  As a result, the municipality had a relatively job.

The land next door to the home (currently in use as a parking lot for the teachers and parents of the nearby Hasan Arafe  primary school) used to belong to the waqf but as often happens in these cases, it was sold "somehow" to a wealthy newcomer and in any case, the municipality wants to construct another unnecessary road on part of the plot where until today a family used to live. Who cares if a they loose their home as a result?

A part of the home is still there, open like a dolls' house towards the street.A large piece of green cloth offers scant protection against the cold night and prying eyes of all those passing by.

Another family pays the price of Ajami's gentrification.


Street gossip says the guy who bought the plot next door pressured the municipality into quickly carrying out the demolition, because he wants the planned road to be constructed ASAP, before he starts his own building plans. If indeed this story is true, one wonders how he thinks he can live there, next to the people whose home he caused to be demolished.

Housing Demo in Kfar Shalem (Salameh)

Until 1948 Salameh was a fairly prosperous Palestinian village, close to Jaffa. Its original inhabitants and home owners were violently turned into refugees, to be replaced by mostly Yemenite immigrants. Soon after 1948 it was renamed "Kfar Shalem" and became a far away suburb of quickly developing Tel Aviv, to be engulfed by that city's new neighbourhoods after a few years. But the villge stayed the village. Lovely one and two storied houses on plots of land, encircled by fruit trees and chicken coops.

The unused mosque in its busy center. Small crooked streets. Muddy in winter and a dustbowl during the hot summer months,

Children were born, then grand children. Rooms were added, bathrooms fixed, new gardens planted. The village developed. Families shared laughter and sadness.

Suddenly the village became attractive, green, low-rise housing, romantic. And housing prices started to go up. The municipality realized there was money to be made, as did the Israel Land Administration, who had become the "owners" of the refugees' "absentee property in 1948 and rented it out to the Yemenites.

As in Jaffa, demolition and eviction procedures were started.

Some years ago, the original Yemenite inhabitants and their children were left very angry, yet almost defenceless, after one home owner was killed by the police after having barricaded himself on the rooftop of his home, in order to protest his eviction.

Two years ago several families were evicted from their homes which were then destroyed in order to make place for construction for the wealthy, just like in Jaffa. Political activities and a court case seemed to stop the process.

But now the evictions have been renewed. And a bond has been formed between the Jaffaites and the people from Kfar Shalem, Salameh, almost as in the old days. 

Like in Jaffa, people are tired of being treated like so much dirt. They are putting up a struggle and today's demo is only the opening shot in that struggle.

Several hundreds marched from the village to the nearby Moshe Dayan 4-lane highway, which they barricaded  in order to protest against the renewed evictions and demolitions. The police, for the time being, were surprisingly considerate. Or maybe i have become used too much to the Jaffa police's violent standards?

Another Jaffa family out in the streets

When R. and her 5 children came home this afternoon, they found all their furniture out in the street, much of it severely damaged and broken. The doorlock had been changed.
The house owner, well known and very wealthy Jaffa property tycoon Walid Aboulafia (of bakery fame), had abused R's absence from the hovel she had been renting from him for some three years, to evict her, illegally, without a court order.
R. asked the police to come, but the sinlge police man did not help her. "There was nothing he could", do he said. R. was under so much pressure by then, that she forgot to take his details.
In fact, it is Mr. Walid Aboulafia who broke the law by evicting her illegally, without a court order.

The flat R. rented was a 2 1/2 room affair in Jaffa's Al Ajami neighborhood. Damp, it's walls blackened by fungi. In the winter the rain entered through the cracked walls. The kitchen sink was not connected to the sewage, so R. used a bucket instead.
For over a year she and her kids had their daily shower at R's mother's tiny house, as the shower in R.'s house didn't function and the owner, rich Walid Aboulafia, refused to repair it.

R. who paid a very high rent relative to the ugly state of the house she lived in, stopped paying the rent. The owner cut off her water and electricity supply. It was easy for him to do so, because in the past, the flat had been larger and he subdevided it, one assumes without a permit. As a result R. shared the electricity and water bill with her neighbors, so it was very easy to punish her.

R. started looking for a new place, but the rents in Jaffa have gone up and all she has is her social security payments. Also many houseowners want all kinds of guarantees, which when you live on social security, you cannot easily get.

The beds were literally broken, as if they had been thrown from the second floor where she lived. Maybe they were.

Due to the Ramadan, Jaffa's streets are very quiet, so we have no witnesses to the method of furniture removal. The broken aquarium says it all, i will not ask questions about the fish. Volunteers from the Islamic movement helped R. to move her stuff (or rather that part worth salvaging) to Esther's house. Esther who's always there to help each and everyone. But the damage has been done. Five children out in the streets. Next week the schoolyear starts. I wonder how R.'s children will cope. We could not find their new schoolbooks in the mess.

Ramadan, Jaffa 2009

Mum & three kids became homeless today

Manal Haj is a single mother of three school age children. They are all out on the street , homeless.

Three days before the onset of the Ramdan and two weeks before the beginning of the school year, Manal and her children have nowhere to go after Halamish, the public housing company evicted them from their home today.

The story is one of those burocratic flipflops, as Manal has been eligible for public housing for over 13 years, but due to change in the type of social security she receives, the payments were stopped for some three months, after which she started receiving a different category of social security.

In order to be elegible for public housing, you need to be dependent for at least two years on social security. Manal receibed social security for 13 years, but during 3 months last year she didn't receive a thing and as a result lost her housing rights.

A New Home for the Marzouk Family

The Marzouk family from Jaffa were living in a dangerous building, that was about to fall down.
The public housing company, Halamish, offered them another home, but due to burocracy and municipal stupidity, the family were stuck in the old home.
I wrote about the family's ordeal a few weeks ago, after one of the children was almost killed by a huge piece of concrete that fell from the ceiling.
The story was picked up by Yediot Ahronot, Israel's favorite daily and this week the family finally moved into their new home.

Lotsa' luck, or, almost a catastrophe

Eleven year old Inserah was watching her favorite summer TV program, when a huge block of concrete fell down right next to her.

The ceiling in the family's living room, in fact the whole buildng on Jerusalem Boulevard, is about to come down.

The walls have deep cracks through which the sky can be seen. Whenever a heavy truck passes by, bits and pices come falling down in a never stoppping snowy shower.

Then flat is owned by "Halamish", the municipal public housing company.

Halamish KNOW about the danger and in fact have approved a move to another flat. But, and this is where burocracy starts, they cannot move.

Samira, Inserah's mother already cleaned the new place. They are already paying the electricity bill for the new place, yet their move has not been fnally approved, because the family owes the municipality money. They are willling to pay but no one knows how much (and that includes the municipality itself).

For years the family has received municipal tax bills for a flat in another building and never for the flat they actually live in. (mind you, they never ever lived in that other building). Their waterbills were equally mysterious: their use is always "0" but they are charged HUGE bills for public use in their building. It appears they are paying the bills for "super shuk Avi", the supermakret downstairs.

For over 6 months they have been writing to the municipality asking to settle their own bill. The correspondence has gone up higher and higher in the hierarchy, until last week they appealed to the mayor, Ron Hulday. To no avail.

They met with the general manager of Halamish, who approved in my presence actually, that they move to the new place.

Yet until now the move has not taken place.... As they are not allowed to move until having settled their municipal bill, which they are unable to because no one appears to know what it is.

Te letter to the mayor contains a simple sentence stattng the family sees him personally responsible of something happens to the family. Today that almost happened.

What are we waiting for? Until the house collapses?

Some sort of victory, for the time being at least.

It appears last week's demo as well as the letters sent by the Jaffa coalition have had a positive effect: Ron Huldai, the mayor, contacted Yaron Bibi, the director of the Israel Land Administration as well as Avishai Braverman, in order to poin that out the new tender (published last Sunday) for the "Etrog" plot of land is problematic. The second and larger part of the "Etrog plot" in Jaffa is one of the last large public owned plots on which affordable housing for Jaffa's young generation can be constructed.

The fact that all of the Jaffa organizations are involved in the coalition, is important;

The tender has been canceled!

Cruelty Alley

The little girls are already forgetting today's drama, replaying it with twists and turns, and turning it into a fairy tale with a happy ending.
Yet the other "little girl" L. is still severely traumatised and crying non stop, tears streaming from her cataract covered eyes.

Some 15 years ago the place was a successful fish restaurant, before all the other places along Kedem Street (street nr. 60 or Ajami Street prior to 1948) were opened. The clients preferred the newer and fancier places, business went down and the restaurant closed. It stood empty for years.
Its very wealthy owner owns another very successful restaurant in the north and didn't care too much about the Jaffa place, that had stood neglected for many years. Having grown old and perhaps somewhat tired, he let his younger brother take care of business.

The younger brother, well aware of the severe housing shortage in Jaffa, divided the place into 5 small crummy flats and started to rent them out for some 500-600 $ a month. No contract.
You pay a few months ahead and receive a key, you miss a payment and you are out.
Of course the restaurant owner's brother did not bother to get a permit (to turn the property into housing units) from the municipality, nor did he bother to pay the very old and by now huge debts to that same municipality and the electricity company, so water and electricity supply "are somewhat problematic". The tenants, not having contracts, cannot register the municipal and electricity bills in their own names.
Only very poor people, having no other choice, are willing to take the risk to live in such a place. My friend A, divorced mum of two little girls, and barely surviving on her cleaner's salary, is one of them. Her neighbour H, with his young daughter and elderly, retarded, half blind sister live there as well. Some two years ago, their key money flat's ceiling caved in and they have been living in "the restaurant" ever since, while the legal procedures on the other house continue, slowly as these things go.
Their financial situation is very bad and they missed last months rent payment. So today the owner sent in the goons. L. the elderly sister, a sweet women known all over the area, likes to play with dolls together with the little girls that live in the alley. Although half blind and elderly, she really is "their age" and the little girls accept her, as she is sweet and innocent. L. was home alone when the goons arrived.
She was scared so she didn't open the door as she has been instructed no to when alone at home and strangers knock on the door.
The goons broke the door and started yelling at her that she should pack her things because she owes rent. They then started to throw the family's belongings out on the street.
L's screams brought out the all the other tenants who intervened on her behalf, pointing out that L is retarded and that the goons should talk to her brother. They formed a fierce defence around L and called the police. At that point, the goons took off (although the police never arrived and told L.'s brother H. should come in and file a complaint before).

Fighting for Jaffa, together

The settlers who wish to turn Jaffa into a Jewish only city, have in essence caused a complete coalition of many Jaffa organizations who prior to this threat never cooperated.
The call was for a joint struggle of Palestinians and Jews against the settlers, who actively threaten the good relationship in the neighbourhood. And to do so by peaceful and democratic means.
At 17.00 all met close to the area where the yeshiva guys bought a plot of land, where there used to be a market serving all of Jaffa's population.
Among the speakers were Omar Siksek, member of the municipal council, Sheikh Anwar Dake of the southern section of the Islamic movement, lawyer Haled of the Muslim Council, SheIkh Abu Ajwe of the northern section of the Islamic movement, Gabi of the Christian club, Knesset member Dov Khenin, Hana Amoury of the popular committee, municipal council member Ahmad Mashrawi, Ilan and Noga of Ofek Hadash, who carried out a research on the ways of functioning of so called "Garinim Toraniim" and several other settler organizations.
The Israel Land Administration is a public body, managing land owned by the public. When they sell lands, they cannot do so to an exclusive group, as per high court decision (Bagatz Ka'aden).
In Jaffa, the sale of public land is sensitive, for two main reasons:
Originally this land belonged to Palestinians. In 1948-1949 it was declared "absentee" property and handed over to the state.
Some 13 years ago a contract was made (and authorized in the Tel Aviv district court) between the housing ministry and Jaffa's Palestinian community according to which the housing ministry undertook it to create 400 housing units for the community, which suffers from a severe housing crisis.
So far 27 flats have been constructed out of 400.....
The "Etrog" plot is one of the last large publicly owned plots on which a large number of flats can be constructed. Most other pubic plots are smaller which makes it less easy for public housing or affordable housing for the poor Palestinian community.
The Israel Land Administration sold the Etrog Plot to a Bemuna, a company owned by a Hebron settle , who explicitly state "they will sell flats only to religious nationalist Jews".
Were-checked this by registering and calling, interesting in buying a housing unit in the new project. "We" being 2 activists, a muslim social worker and a secular Jewish researcher. They met with blunt refusal. In other cou ntries this would be called blunt racism.

About to be thrown out on the streets: mum & 5 young kids

I recall watching a TV program based on a story by Dickens when i was a child. Some years ago i read a book "Angela's Ashes". In both cases i recall having a sort of feeling of appreciation, that at least "these things no longer happen that way today". Ahem, well, they actually do happen today.

R. is a divorced mother of 5 young children, living in Jaffa. Her husband married twice since leaving her and left both other women with children as well. He refuses to pay alimony and R and her kids are dependent on social security payments, which add up to about 2.700 NIS a month. (about 600$ for her and her 5 kids)
Her rent is 2.300 NIS. This is the monthly rent for a tiny living room and 1 bedroom, both heavily stained by fungi growing on the wall and ceilings due to humidity problems. The roof and walls leak badly when it rains. R. has NO shower (it is blocked up so badly that it cannot be used, the owner refuses to carry out the necessary repairs) and the kitchen has no drain. So buckets are used for that purpose. Showers are taken daily at friends' and neighbors' place.
The house owner belongs to a very wealthy family who own many flats in Jaffa. They love money. For them every hovel is "an investment". For their renters it's "home". But a home that doesn't look like nor feel like a real home.

R. receives rental aid of about 600 NIS monthly. Which leaves her unable to provide for her and her kids. She is behind with the rent and the house-owner has informed her he will evict her this week, as he wants his money.
Riki is desperate to find a flat, but there is nothing she can actually afford. Her kids go to a nearby school, so the area (Ajami) is of some importance.
If any of you know about something available, please let me know.

But R. is just one case.
There are many like her. There is a big request for small rental flats, as many families cannot afford to buy. This has left the flat owners with the option to make money. And they do. Disgusting hovels that do not earn the name "flat", go for amazing rental prizes. Some people have gone to live back home with their parents, but for many one parent families dependent on welfare (and not only for them, also many families living on a minimum wage cannot afford the rent) this option does not exist.
The right to a roof above ones head is a basic human right and Israel has signed different international agreements concerning this right, yet that is as far as it goes.
We are quickly heading towards a housing disaster and no one seems to be caring a great deal.

The Tel Aviv municipality committee on affordable housing caters to the 7nth percentile, couples who earn some 11.0000 NIS monthly. For them the municipality wants to build rental housing in which they can live for 5 years, for a monthly rent of 2.800 NIS.
Weird, as after all these families can afford to rent good flats on the private market with their income. Also they can get a mortgage to buy. Whereas lower income families (and that includes employed many poor whose salaries are simply too low) find themselves living in substandard conditions (i personally know a family with 8 kids to live in 1 room) , unsafe housing for which they pay very high rents.
They same municipal committee for affordable housing assumes the ministry of housing provides adequate solutions for people making less by subsidizing rent and providing public housing to the very poor. Do these guys live on the moon?
Or is it official policy: providing incentives for the well to do to live in Tel Aviv and actively kicking out the less well to do and poor?

Tell R. about their ideas. And perhaps tell her also where these presumes solutions are. After all the waiting list for Halamish public housing is 12 years....

R. will be out on the streets any day now. Her houseowner cannot but be defined as just another leach. We tried to talk to him, but all he is interested in, is money. He claims he can get $ 1000 monthly for his disgusting hovel. And he is probably right, as people are desperate.

So what if you want access to your own home?

The ultra rich are buying up property in Jaffa, nothing new there.

A tiny piece of land on Mendes France street went for 1.200.000 $ not a while ago.

The neighbors had hope to buy it so they could expand their modest home, which was becoming cramped for their growing family. However, their offer was way below that of the people who finally bought the little plot; Close to the beach, opposite a park, no doubt, prime property.

What the neighbors did not expect, was that the developers of the neighboring plot would simply block the access to their own home!

One day the bulldozers came, dug a deep hole in preparation for laying the foundations for the new house and that was it. No more access.

I guess there is one law for the rich and quite another one for the poor.

As the deep hole started caving in, the neighbors put up a fence to protect their own little children, as even that had not been done by the very wealthy. They also went to court to stop further development for the time being.

The neighbors are willing to find a creative solution, but what amazesme is the ease with which these wealthy people work, the sheer violence of their activities.

How can they possible expect to live their in neighborly peace, if this is how the rich behave towards their poor neighbors?

But perhaps that is exactly it: they do not expect at all to live next door to the poor. They are probably planning for some way of getting rid of them.

Oh and no, this is not an April Fool's Day joke. The sad truth of life in Jaffa, April 1, 2009

Barricade successful, (for the time being)

From the early morning hours Manar Haj and her three young children (13, 9 and 3 years old) as well as many of the neighbours and local activists prevented the police from carrying out another eviction in Jaffa.
After several hours of being barricaded inside the small home, a lawyer managed to get a weeks time, in order to try and find a solution.

Manar is the divorced mum of three young children. When she married, some 14 years ago, she moved into the house of her husband's parents, as is common in Jaffa. His parents were public housing residents (Halamish), after they had been made to give up their large home in Ajami, years earlier, by the Israel land authority.
Over time the parents moved out and their son, his wife and the children stayed in the house. By law, as second generation they were entitled to.
Manar and her husband divorced and she stayed in the house with the kids. That's when trouble started. the housing company decided to move her out, insisting she was a squatter. Manar took a lawyer, not knowing this lawyer had been disbarred. she gave him all the money she had and would call him every few weeks to get an update as to how her case was coming along. He promised her all was going to be fine and no one would move her out of her home. Until the day she got the court order with the eviction notice - for the next day. Only then did she learn her lawyer had been disbarred, but she had no money left for a legal defence.
She called the housng company who told her to come over.
There she was made a "grand offer". She was to choose between either being moved out forcefully the next day or stay another 2 months for 3500 NIS a month (her total income stands at about 3000 NIS monthly) and then mve out on her own. Feeling she had no choice, she "agreed". It was eioher the street or some more time in her home.
Although she tried, she was not able to find a home she could afford.

So this morning the goonteam (police, including special forces- yasam) came over. Manar and her children as well as the neighbours and activists barricaded inside the home and gathered in the street, while a lawyer went to court.
We gained another week....

Miriam & her 6 kids have been evicted

The good news, another apartment has been found and the contract has been signed. It's a nice place, but the rent costs 3000 NIS a month. Miriam's over all income (inlcuding 1200 NIS rent subsidy) stands at about 3400 NIS.
That will leave her not enough money for food, electricity, water, the very basics. She has 6 children, all school kids except for the youngest 2 year old girl. She has no one to take care of her, so Miriam cannot easily go out to work.

We started gathering at about 7.45 this morning, the usual activists as well as a few new faces. The police contacted us a few times and we told them we are working on a solution, please give us more time. One deal almost came through, then failed. The police came by a few times as did the Halamish representative, at that time there were some 30 activists around and cars had been parked very close to the entrance making forceful entry problematic. They left.
The youngest kids played in the streets, the teenage girls kept mainly to themselves, nervous, scared, not knowing if they will have home in another few hours.
During the day we contacted the press as well as the mayor's office. The mayor has not come back until now.
Time passed by and the feeling was that that will probably do it tomorrow. Miriam had gone off to see another flat and the activists played with her young children. However, the activists were leaving quickly one after the other.
Around 17.30 the room suddenly filled up with police men and moving company people, who were pushed into action. We pointed out Miriam, the mother isn't in, only her minor children.
It didn't help. In the mean time Rasha, the lawyer left to assist Miriam in making a contract for her new flat. There is no way she can afford this flat, but she had no choice. It's this flat or the street, which means loosing her children her her children loosing their mum.
We called her and asked the police to wait at least until she's back, pointing out that she is right now signing a contract. The police refused point blank and instructed the moving company to start working.
We felt helpless.
We knew Miriam was getting another flat, although there is no way she can afford it. They could at least have given her some time to get ready. But nothing helped. The movers worked quickly but not at all carefully. We were unable to prevent nor to intervene.

Miriam's new flat is not hooked up to the electricity system as a previous inhabitant left debts.
Reconnecting costs a lot of money, which Miriam doesn't have.

Alert for miriam's home - barricading NOW

Hi,

All of those in Jaffa, please go to Miriam's home at the corner of Jerusalem Boulevard 37, NOW
She has not been able to find a flat and they will evict her and her 6 children out into the streets TODAY.
We can and must prevent it.
We need you all over there

Miriam and her 6 children are threatened with eviction out into to streets

Miriam, strong and very bright, has had a tough life. But it taught her how to fight, how to be assertive and how to get what she needs. But now things have taken a worse turn.

Today the police arrived to evict her from the home she squatted about half a year ago, out into the rainy streets.

She has nowhere to go. Quick intervention gave her another two days, in which she must find another flat. Miriam's children all go to school or to a kindergarden except the 2 year old one.
They live on social security. Miriam has a tough time finding employment as her youngest daughter, two years old, has no kinder garden and private childcare is too expensive. The family lives on about 2.400 NIS monthly. But over the last two months Miriam didn't get any money due to a bureaucratic mess. In addition she is entitled to 1200 NIS a month rent subsidy, but given the fact that a small 1 room studio flat in Jaffa costs about 2000 NIS at least per months, the family's chances of finding a rental flat on the public market are close to zero. Of course they are eligible for public housing but the waiting list is taking years, as there are no flats available.
After all, the country has been selling of public housing flats and instead of investing the money obtained from the sales in constructing new public housing (as was the plan), not even one public house has been constructed over the last twenty years inside the green border line. Wages and social security payments have gone down drastically, rent has gone up and rent support has gone down. More and more people are becoming homeless. But no one really seems to care, free market is "great" after all.

If she will be kicked out, the welfare department will take her kids into foster care. Miriam is a good mother. It would make more sense if they would assist her pay the rent. After all putting 6 kids into care would not only be most tramatic for all, but is also very expensive..... Go figure.

And those in Jaffa, we may need you to defend Miriam's home, this week. Stay alert.

Temporary victory for Itidal

The municipal court judge granted Itidal another month in her home in Karem Dalek (Jaffa) today.
During this month voluntary architects from "Bimkom" will try to make a few additional steps towards legalizing her home.
The municipal lawyer was against granting Itidal more time and really wanted to destroy the home of this poor one-parent family, but for now we are winning.
I really wonder about those municipality people. Have they no heart.
After all bureaucrats have their bureaucratic means to provide a solution. Were i working at the city building engineer's office, Itidal's file would have been buried deeply at the bottom of a very high stack of files. but then there are reasons why i am not a bureaucrat.

Images of Itidal's neighbourhood

Tiny victory for Itidal

The emergency judge postponed the planned demolition of Itidal's home until 14.00 o'clock this Sunday, so we can appeal the case in court (once again) early Sunday morning.
So, no demolition yet.
But those of you willing to assist: don't go to sleep, the real fight has not yet been won, keep in touch. We may need you on Monday.

Itidal's home: waiting for the court desicion

Lawyer Rasha Asaf of the Popular Committee Against Home Demolitions has appealed to the emergency judge to make a temporary ruling against the demolition of Itidal's home this coming sunday.
Although an appeal has been filed some days ago, to ask the judge responsible for the case, for more time, this judge selected not to make a decision.
As the demolition is planned for Sunday, making no decision is in fact, making a decision and telling the demolishers to go along and carry out their ugly job: destroying the home of a gravely ill mother and her two school age children, who have nowhere else to go.

Rasha is doing all she can to prevent the demolition of the home. We hope the emergency judge will make a favourable decision, which will at lest buy Itidal and her kids some time.
Yet, if necessary, we may have to barricade. Those of you in Jaffa and Tel Aviv, stay in touch.

The background story:
Karmeh Dalek is the site of an ancient orange grove in Jaffa, owned by the Dalek family. The ownership of the land is private today, although complicated as a result of all kinds of actions carried out by various entities to whom the different members of the Dalek family own money or do not own money. (imagine a plate of legal spaghetti). There is no actual municipal building plan for the area. The general idea is to demolish and rebuild, yet the municipality never bothered to carry out an actual city plan. As a result, it is impossible to obtain a building permit. The city's building department has no organised file for the various buildings on the site and their documentation is less than sparse. Over time, rooms have been added, porches closed off and who knows what else.
The place looks like a refugee camp consisting of hovels and temporary buildings added to older existing structures, but no one exactly knows when what was constructed. An no one includes the municipality. They cannot actually prove which building exists since when. the buildings have no actual addresses, nor home numbers. This burocratic disregard should actually buy Itidal some time, as it is unclear the demolition order really relates to her home. The technical details could well relate any other house in the area.
Why they selected her is not clear. Legally speaking the municipal case is weak, as they have little actual proof.
The people living in the Dalek grove are poor. They cannot buy or rent housing elsewhere. And as they "have housing", they are not eligible for public housing or rent assistance in quite a few cases.
So people added rooms, made doors or windows where there were none, added a roof here or there. By the city books these are "crimes".
By those same city books, terminally ill Itidal is a criminal, who "needs to be punished" for illegally providing a home to herself and her kids.

Yet the true criminal is the municipality, whose negligence and disregard for Jaffa's poor population has created a situation in which they CANNOT get building permits to build on their own land, because that very same municipality has not bothered to make a housing plan for the area, thereby creating a burocratic cycle from which escape is impossible.