The 2010 municipal budget - good for the wealthy and who cares about the rest?

Yesterday evening the Tel Aviv - Yafo municipal council voted for the budget proposal for the year 2010: 

The coalition praised themselves for their great sensitivity and the wonderful budget proposal. That included Jaffa council member Ahmad Mashrawi (Meretz) who, like the total bunny he is,   voted in favour of a budget in which the south of the city, Jaffa included, continues to be discriminated against.

Mashrawi, who just loves publicity,  claims to vote in favour of  Jaffa but the facts show the opposite. Meretz are part of the coalition and their current track record is highly embarrassing.  

The outnumbered opposition (to Ron Hulday's wide coalition) asked to vote separately on a number of clauses, in order to try and make at least a few improvements and do some social justice:

Omar Siksik of the Jaffa list asked to vote separately for an added 200.000 NIS for the Jaffa based "Hirsh" early childhood development center. 

The Hirsch centre provides testing and treatment for development problems for children at a young age.   The centre is highly professional and the only service of its kind in the whole city able to provide these services in Arabic. The centre's very existence is threatened due to the continued budget cuts.  The implication of the centre's closure or limited ability to provide services is obvious: Parents will not be able to provide their young children with the most basic services. Not even privately (the majority would not have the money for that in any case) as their is no alternative in all of the city for Arabic speaking young children. 

Mashrawi (Meretz, that supposedly socially conscious party, now part of the coalition, what will people do for a little money) has been posing as the big fighter for the Hirsch centre, but reality is rather different as he did NOT vote in favour. He abstained, what a hero!

A city that spends 70 million NIS on a bicycle rental project does not have 1.100.000 for the Hirsch center, or 55.000 for the teenage health clinic, which will receive 0 money in 2010.

Or, another example: the Toulouse Club for the elderly, the only one serving Jaffa's elderly Palestinian population in Ajami, has an annual budget of 70.000 NIS. Its sister club in Neve Golan (Yafo Gimmel) which serves that area's Jewish population receives 220.000 NIS in the budget.  I am in favour of Neve Golan's budget. But Why does the Ajami Club for elderly Arabic speakers receive so little? 

And these are only a few examples. I could go on and on and on. The budget is highly biased.

Tel Aviv is positioning itself as a city for the wealthy only, disregarding its poorer inhabitants. In addition the 2010 budget is totally greenwashed. More and more car parks and highways. 

It was embarrassing to see Peer Wisner (the Green Party also in the coalition) vote in favour of the budget. What a little money does to these "freedom fighters".

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.

One out of four Israelis are poor, but who cares?

The Social Security Institute's poverty report shows what we in Jaffa have been feeling for a long time: many are poor and their poverty is deepening.

In fact, today 1,651,300 people in Israel (=25%) are living below the poverty line, and almost 47% of the poor are working poor. That is, families where at least one of the partners is employed, but their salary is so low, they are poor.

Almost 29% of the poor are elderly people, depending on their shamefully low state pensions.

Out of the working population almost 13% are poor.

 The Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality, edged up 0.6 percent from 2007 to 2008.

The minimum wage is low, but many working people earn much less than the minimum wage. Many of them are afraid to complain, as they are worried they will be fired. Others are employed through contractors who fired them every few months, so they will not have to pay them social rights, which they get after 9 months employment.

But what do these numbers really mean?

Prices have gone up hysterically. Discounts for the poor have been cancelled and special support programs are being cut due to budget limitations. As a result of the global slow down, many NGO's are closing down due to less donations.

The ridiculous privitization that has been taking place over the last few years caused much work to be transferred from the state to these NGO's, on the flimsy assumption they would do a better and more efficient job. And cheaper for the state in any case.

Admittedle, some NGO's have been doing wonderful work, on a high professional level.

However, now one NGO after the other closes down or cuts programs. The state is no longer responsible for the privatised services and the poor and needy simply do not get what they are entitled to, as the service no longer exists...

So not only are there more poor, but they are poorer and there are less and less services available to them.

Last week i volunteered for a food hand out program for the very needy. I was shocked to find out the closed boxes contained food stuff that was way past the "sell by" date, in some cases almost two years.

The freshest item, a small box of teabags,  was about 1 month past its sell by date. Other products were label-less and one could only guess as to their contents and sell by date.

But people took them never the less. "What can i do?", asked Ibtisal. "It's the only food i will have in my home until the 14th, when my pension comes in." "My daughter got divorced and she returned to live with me with her 3 children. I have many mouths to feed."

Frankly, i do NOT believe in food hand out programs. I think providing higher wages, social security payments as well as stringent control of labour laws are much better tools in the fight for a just allocation of resources and against poverty. More over, when companies donate the stuuf they were not able to sell and can no longer put in the market because it's past the sell by date, they can deduct this as a donation from their taxes, do some PR and feel publicly good about themselves.

As to me, it makes me very angry. Poverty is a social problem that can be solved. It does NOT fall from the sky. It really is a crime carried out by the very strong, the elite, against the weaker people in society. Poverty is preventable.

Not doing anything about it is criminal.

 

Chasing humans on the garbage-mountain, oops, in the Jaffa "Midron" park

Lately i have been taking early morning and late evening walks and runs in our brand new "midron park", usually topped of by a serious work-out in the open air free gym and a water drinking pause at the very end of the deck, above the huge evening waves crashing just below (and sometimes all over me, allowing for a salty cooling shower). During the cool eveing hours the northern, almost finished part of the park (which isn't open ye, but trust Jaffans to find a way in) many hang around, with fresh grapes, watermelon, drinks, surrounded by their kids running wild on the green grass ans sandy slopes. Thus, on my way back, there is always someone offering me a drink or sweet cool fruit.

Although not yet finished, the park is a true blessing, inspite of its sorry story, as it is also the grave of Palestinian Jaffa: When the Palestinian homes of Jaffa were demolished, their rubble was thrown on the Ajami beach, just south of the Jaffa harbour. Soon all kinds of junk followed the rubble. The underworld also quite loved the location for getting rid of suspicious "materials" of all kinds from cars used in robberies to body parts and drug stashes, weapons, explosives, you name it.

Thus, a huge rubble mountain was created, called "the garbage mountain". Only a very small part of the original beach was left; the "Jabaliyah beach, not known to most Tel Avivians.

The municipality intended to create an artifical piece of land and construct villas and other housing for the very well to do, in order to "uplift the level of the local population".

The Jaffa community, united for the first , them to court and won. The rest is history. A park was to be created, and a small part of the beach was restored as well.

And, the truth, the park is great. OK, there is a lot of water-using soft green grass (irrigated with de-salienated sea water, i have been told) but that makes for great picknicks and games. The open air gym is already popular, so for once, thanks, municipality, thanks mishlama. What started out as destruction , turned into some sort of a blessing.

But blessings is not what this story is all about.

The new homes of the ultra rich in Ajami, are being constructed by "illegal" workers, mostly from the territories. Low pay and horrid labor conditions are all part of the ugly game of labor relations in construction. Nothing new there. On large construction projects you'll mostly find Chinese and Romanian labor migrants. But when constructing oriental style villas, you need stone masons for the creation of arches and arabesques: Palestinians from the occupied territories. They work hard and receive low pay, the risk is mostly on them. The conditions in the occupied territories are so difficult, many of tem have no choice, but to come to Israel and work here in order to provide for their poor families.

Yesterday the border police carried out a manhunt for "illegal" construction workers. Some of them gt away, quickly running to wherever they could hide. In some cases, sympathetic locals, both Palestinians and Jews, helped to hide them, feeling uncomfortable and perhaps guilty with the man hunt going no in their now quite fancy neighborhood. after all, the police are not chasing criminals, but people whose only crime is wanting to provide for their families through hard physsical labour few Israelis are willing to do.

The hunt went on for many hours. Until sunset, or so we thought.

On may way back from my run, quite late, almost midnight, i saw them, again, border police and soldiers carefully going through the park. Searching.

When going out running i only carry water, no id. But they weren't looking for me and the likes of me. The man hunt was still on.

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.

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.

Municipal budget lies

The Hirsch Centre in Jaffa is a special early childhood development centre providing services to Jaffa's youngest: testing, communication and play therapy, parents' groups and more. The centre treats over 1500 young children from Jaffa annually.
The municipality has decided to cut its budget by 50%, stating the different health-funds will make up for the rest. During the preparatory budget meeting the municipal representative even stated they already had a contract with all major health-funds and were about to close contracts with the others.

If the municipality had a Pinocchio nose, it would be very long now indeed.

The municipality closed a contract with exactly ONE health-fund, the tiny "Leumit", which insures about 2-3 % of Jaffa's population and on average refers 1 child per year (out of 1.500 children treated annually at the centre) to the Hirsh Centre!.
They are not even close to making deals with the other centres who have stated they absolutely refuse to do so according to the centers general manager, Ms. Amal Tatour.
Moreover, if they refer a child the parents first have to pay a fee 0f 150 NIS per hour for which they will get, after payment, a partial refund of 100 NIS. Thus every hour will cost the parent 50 NIS, which is a lot when you raise 3 kids on welfare of e.g. 2000 NIS a month!.
In addition, the healthfund will limit the amount of sessions to about 10-15, even if the child needs more.

The implication is clear: poor parents cannot afford this kind of necessary service for their young children and will not take their kids under these circumstances. At an age when many development problems can be preveted Jaffa's young children from weakened families, will not receive the necessary treatment.
This by itself is a major infringement upon the human rights of these children.

But the danger is larger than that, amal Tatour pointed out: As the majority of the Jaffa population are poor, people wil stop coming to the center. The municipality will conclyude there is no need for the services, as their will be no clients and the center will probably be closed in another few years.

The municipality points out that in other neighborhoods the services in these centers are paid for by the health funds and the population, but Tel Aviv is rich, and Jaffa is poor. So that comparison doesn't go very well.
In Jaffa the drop-out rate from the Arab public schools is 53%. And preventing drop out starts at a young age: if dyslexia and attention span disorders etc. are detected and dealt with at a young age, much suffering at a later age can be prevented.
The proposed budget cut raises serious questions.
Perhaps the municipality LIKES to keep the Jaffa population poor and voiceless?

"The Jaffa Heiress" - Court Results

Just back from court and i don't know what to say except that we left a little confused. We had hoped for justice, true justice, which ofcourse was naive.

Instead we got out of court with a "pshara", a court approved compromise deal, in which the debt was returned to the original sum without interest and inflation hikes, to be paid a small monthly installments, which Intissar, although with some difficulty, will be able to meet. However, we had hoped for more, for a verdict that would clear her from the debt, which the court agreed was not hers at all.

Had Intissar been wealthier, perhaps she could have risked go for a law case, taking the risk she might loose and have to pay a lot. As she's poor, she went for the compromise. She couldn't afford to take the risk.

The good thing: no more debt arrests, nor threats, yet somehow justice was not served...

The truly bad thing: when you are poor, you cannot really afford to fight for your rights in court, even if you do not have to pay your lawyers' fees. You cannot risk loosing the fight, so you agree to a compromise that doesn't feel right.

The original story

"The Jaffa Heiress" goes to court today!

Over a year ago i wrote about Intissar (not her real name), a young (at the time still a minor) woman from Jaffa, who was about to be arrested for debts she "inherited" from her father.

Intissar's case has been taken up by the law clinic of Tel Aviv University's faculty of law and today Intissar goes to court to fight her case.
She will be represented by lawyers Ora Blum and Dori Spivak of the law clinic.
The case has been prepared by the lawyers and law students of the clinic.

Since the first publication of the story, Intissar has married and a few weeks ago she gave birth to her first son. She's worried about appearing in court today, but very much wants to put up a fight.

Intissar was placed outside of her home when she was still a baby, as her parents were not able to care for her. Her father, who died a few years ago, was addicted to drugs and made debts all around. The debts were passed on to his children.
Intissar's father registered his phone in Intissar's name when she was 2 years old and living with a foster family . The phone company never bothered to check, and ofcourse the father didn't pay the bill. The phone was cut off after a big debt had been run up. When Intissar was 12 years old, Bezeq, the phone company, took out their first debt arrest against the little girl, who wasn't aware of it. In fact, none of us knew about it until the clinic started to investigate the case. The amazing thing is that also the judge didn't bother to check nor ask questions, before he gave the arrest warrant although he did use the words "Intissar or her ward" so he must have paid attention to the fact the she was a very young child at the time.

So, this morning she'll be in court. Updates later on.

Akko, for a change

Akko's old city was empty today. Some local kids, the occasional woman buying some vegetables for dinner. At the sea front a single fisherman. The harbour: empty. Trays of delicious and tempting nut-candy find no buyers.
The restaurants: the owners of nearby empty coffeeshops and humus places share a coffee and a languid game of sheshbesh.
And police, yes, there were quite a few police men for such an empty town.

Normally during Sukot, Akko is host the the alternative theatre festival; lots of shows in many of Akko's ancient halls as well as in the streets, filled with tourists who arrive annually especially for the festival.

Not this year.

Right-wing extremists carried out a pogrom against Akko's Palestinian population. Three homes of Palestinian families were torched and completely burnt and several more families have had to leave their homes and have not yet been able to return. They are waiting until it will be safe again. But will it?

When Palestinian wounded were carried to ambulances, the police watched and stood by when the angry mob attacked them.

The theatre festival could have been used as a place to come together, to talk, to try to deal with the conflict. The theatre festival takes place far away from the troubled "Mizrahi" neighborhood where the pogrom took place. Its cancellation was the mayor's punishment of Akko's Arab population.
The Palestinian population of the Old City depend for their livelyhood on the festival. It's the one week of the year when Akko is full and festival participants spend much money eating out, buying drinks, sweets and trinkets.
Cancellation the festival robs all of Akko's people of a fun event, and theatre lovers of a quality experience, but it hurts the people of the Old City, many of whom are poor, of their livelihood.

Yet the implications go beyond Akko.
A similar situation could easily arise in all of the mixed cities, where the Palestinians have been undergoing decades long discrimination in all fields: education and culture, welfare, housing, employment etc etc.

Jaffa in that sense is very much like Akko.
Yet, violence is preventable. It really depends on how wise we all are.

Having an extremist yeshiva right in the middle of Ajami doesn't help and is potentially dangerous.

Brother, can you spare me a dime?

So Lehrman Bro. fell and Merril Lynch did too. AIG is in major trouble, "but here all is well". Or so the varous commentors on radio tell me. Here? Nah, we're fine.
Sure, ofcourse, and there is "nothing to worry about". Wild globalization. Israel's privatised pension funds are heavily invested in the US property and mortgage market. Much money has been invested in the over-valued Eastern European property market as well. And when they start to loose, you, me and the rest of us loose.

But there is more and it is all bad.
Over the last so many years Israel has privatised its civil services more and more, putting the responsibility in the hands of so many well-meaning NGO's , while providing some of them with partial financial support, on the expectation the Jewish communities abroad will somehow donate the rest.
"Shnor" has been retermed "fundraising and then "resource development", but it is still the same: wealthier Jews in the US and Europe donate to Israeli NGO's taking care of education, health, housing, welfare, the elderly, food security etc.. The state is less and less responsible and we all accept it.
The 2nd Lebanon war showed how dangerous that is, when the poor, elderly and weak were left hungry and thirsty in the shelters and even in their homes because they couldn't make it down the stairs to the bombshelters in time, in their wheelchairs and with their rollators. After all, the electricity had been cut off and the elevator didn't work and the nurses and social workers had run off to the south and the center, out of reach of the missiles.
"The system" did not function and it was shocking.
But the privatization continued and still does.
Yet those same NGO's have more trouble raising money, as the devalued dollar made their donations of less value and at the same time America's Jewish community donated less.
And now they will give even less and the dollar will go down even more.
NGO's in Israel will stop providing services or provide less services to less people and perhaps of a lesser quality.
Some will stop alltogether.
The poor will be paying first as always. But all of us are loosing now. Loosing our pensions, becoming much poorer. All of us. The rich will, perhaps, give up a skiing holiday or buy a cheaper car.
The rest of us? Brother (or sister) can you spare me a dime? Yes capitalism is really "wonderful".

Mum & 6 young kids from Jaffa, no eviction (yet)

S is married with 6 young children, all students or in (pre) kindergarden. Her kids are good students; one of her girls is about to begin an academic program for gifted kids, while still in high school.

Yet all isn't rosy. S lost her social insurance payments for several months (yes, the usual burocratic flunks) and couldn't afford the rent as a result.

And once you stop receiving social security, you also stop receiving rent support....

The house owner evicted her and as she and her children had nowhere to go, she squatted a nearby 2 bedroom appartment belonging to a social housing company, now almost three months ago. The flat had been empty for a very long time and was in a terrible condition: no sinks, no kitchen, the bathroom barely functional.

It had become a hang-out place for local drug addicts.

S carried out the most necessary repairs and started living there.

Last week the police informed her she is baout to be evicted. In addition a criminal procedure was started against her, as squatting is a "crime" from a legal point of view.

S went to see her social worker who told her she could not help her and that S and her kids should leave the flat.

"If you have nowhere to go", so the social worker added, "the social services can take the kids away from you and place them in forster care." (which incidentally would cost a lot more than renting an appartment for the family).

S got very upset and said she "would never agree to this and does not intend to leave the flat, as she has nowhere to go. I might as well kill myself", she added. She said this in an angry tone and left.

A little while later she receive a call from the police, informing her the social worker had filed a complaint against her stating S had "threatened her".

S explained the situation to the police woman by phone and hopes that will be the end of the case.

She then went to the Popular Committee against Home Demolitions and received a court order that allows her to stay in the flat for the time being.

In spite of the order, the police and Halamish reps turned up this morning to evict her. People from the committee showed up to support her.

After S showed them the court order, they left. Shaken she and the kids are still in their home.

For the time being.

Food safety measures and the violence of poverty

Aida fainted last week. From Hunger. She hadn't eaten in two days and that wasn't the first time it happened. She and Ramzi, her husband are both ill, but there is no money for the many medicines they need to take.
Aida doesn't see much, her glasses broke and she fixed them, with tape as there is no money to replace them.
Ramzi used to work transporting and lifting heavy objects such as fridges, washing machines etc. from the age of 18. Now in his late forties, his back and heart give him trouble. Social security recognised him as 30% disabled, not enough to warrant him disability pay. But he can no longer lift heavy things, and has no other job skills.
They have only child allowance as income. 400 NIS a month for them and their 5 young children aged 3-10. (They are supposed to receive 800 NIS, but as Ramzi has not paid national insurance while being ill and not working, he has a debt, which is being deducted) .
Yes, he is trying to correct the situation with the social security, but not being able to read and write makes it complicated.
And in the mean time, they were not able to pay the rent, so the house owner wants them to leave their flat in another two weeks.
They used to receive rent subsidy, but when Ramzi's social security payments were cancelled, the family's rent subsidy was automatically cancelled as well. One only receives rent subsidy is one is dependent on social security. They same goes for the discount in municipal taxes, which was cancelled. Ramzi and Aida don't see a way out.

It's not only Aida and Ramzi and their five kids who live in the small 1 bedroom flat, but also Aida's sister and her 4 children, who were kicked out of their flat two months ago by the bank after they couldn't meet the mortgage payments. That makes three adults and eleven children in a one bedroom flat. Her husband works but as the market is slow, his employer reduced his work to 3.5 days a week, "for the time being". His salary (minimum pay) doesn't always arrive on time. After they were kicked out of their flat, the bank sold it, for a low price. They still owe the bank money, although they paid the mortgage for more than 10 years.

It's almost Ramadan, time for reflection and and meeting the family. Festive dinners after a day of fasting. Well fasting is a regular one at Aida's home, There is no food. The festivities are far away.
School will also be starting for the children. But they do not have the books, pens and notebooks they need.
One of the children, a 10 year old boy, has been found to be extremely gifted and is supposed to enrol in a special educational program for gifted children. But he doesn't sleep well, he's scared of being out in the streets, having no home, nowhere to go. The school promised psychological counselling.
The boy's parents suffer from serious health problems and there is little chance of them finding good employment. Social security has been denied (yes it will probably be returned, but these procedures take time) and in the mean time there is no food. Soon there will be no home. Psychological counselling will not do much good. The young child will probably loose the chance of a lifetime, as the gifted children's program is demanding and the kid doesn't have the energy. Of course the family doesn't have the transport fees (it's in Tel Aviv) so he won't go.

Lately there have been political talks about food safety programs. There are also talks about additional cuts in social security payments in the coming budget.
Cuts cuts and more cuts. If social security payments would be higher and the bureaucracy dealing with them simpler and quicker there would be no need for food safety programs. The same goes of course for raising the minimum wage. After all, 60% of Israel's poor are WORKING poor.

Poverty and keeping people poor is a form of violence. Aida, Ramzi and their children and Aida's sister's family and so many others are victims of that violence.
Israel's ever widening social gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" is ethnically marked.

Almost Ramadan and almost the beginning of the school year, Ajami, Jaffa 2008

Jungle fever

Last friday a neighbourhood committee was formed in Saknet AlArabi, or, as this neighbourhood is known in Jaffa, "the Jungle". No, not my name, that's what everybody calls it, it implying what perhaps should be known as Israel's public worst housing estate. The official address is "Shem Hagdolim Street. I guess "HaGdolim" refers to the biggest drug dealers (for those not able to read Hebrew, the street name means "the name of the great") .

The neighbourhood (most of it is public housing owned by "Halamish") is plagued by great poverty (read: not enough food on the table in many homes) , very high crime rates, much violence, few kids complete school, drugs all around. A place with very little hope. It's also filthy beyond description and dangerous: All of the estate shares two open garbage containers which tend to overflow. The wind and the stray cats and rats do the rest. The sewage flows freely in some areas. There is no light in the staircases and corridors and the stairs have no bannisters in most cases. There are no post-boxes. The gaz balloons stand here and there, unprotected, while the central gaz supply has become unsafe, yet its cover is used by the jungle's small children as "monkey-bars" for lack of anything else close by. The electricity wires are exposed in many of the staircases, which, given the darkness and the running sewage (whenever you see green weeds and grass growing somewhere in that desperate place, make sure you watch your step, that's where the sewage runs through) in many of the buildings is simply an accident waiting to happen.
Most of the neighbourhood's families have been disconnected from the central gaz company, as they cannot afford the very high bills. Instead they made their own, unsafe, gaz connection with private gaz cannisters standing and laying about here and there, waiting for an accident to happen.
This is the kind of area in which the police only enter in big groups with a helicopter flying above.

Some time ago the youth club was closed. Less time ago the only youth leader was fired. Maintenance of both the public and private space is non existent. In public housing estates that responsibility is shared by the housing company and the municipality. But they don't care. they haven't cared for many years in fact.
Most of the people living there were robbed of their original homes in Ajami and Jabaliya and offered a flat in the complex as a solution to their housing problem. There is much anger and frustration, when people living in the Jungle see what has become of the homes they were kicked out from. These have been turned into villas for the very wealthy and sold for much money while they, the original owners got stuck in a slum beyond description.

The jungle has become a place of despair from which it is almost impossible to escape.
Yet there is also solidarity and strength. And those led to the establishment of a neighbourhood committee being establishment. True, a few less successful attempts have been made before, but this time it feels and looks different. People, women and men from all buildings, are focused and with the help of activists and lawyer Rasha Asaf the first steps were undertaken.

And in the mean time, the father was subjected to police brutality

Hanna Nadi and her 8 young children stand to be evicted into the streets from the small "Halamish" owned flat they squatted in. So far Hanna has not been able to find another flat (big enough to house her and her kids) she can afford. The police have informed her she will be evicted, probably today.

We're trying to assist her, but in the mean time the father of her children was arrested yesterday afternoon, because of debts. The father, in his fifties and very ill, is dependent on social security as his disease prevents him from working.
As a result he cannot take care of his children either.

Over time, unable to meet municipal and other payments, he made a debt of about 5000 NIS.

The repossession people came after him accompanied by the police, and somehow a fight erupted. The father was wounded; 3 broken ribs and a head wound. Both hands and feet shackled, the father was taken to nearby Wolfson hospital, where he received stitches to his head and treatment (being shackled throughout the medical procedures) and then taken to the Abu Kabir jail.

Yes, this is an enlightened country...

Hanna Nadi and her 8 children - Continuing the fight

Some weeks ago Hanna and her 8 young children were kicked out of the small flat they lived in. After a few days in a neighbour's house, she squatted the flat she was evicted from, she had no other choice. It was either the streets or back to the old, windowless, flat.

Halamish, the housing company, filed a criminal complaint against her and last week Hanna was questioned by the police. I accompanied her to the police station and played with her 2 youngest daughters, while a police officer questioned her. From his remarks it was obvious he disliked this part of his job, and felt quite sympathetic towards Hanna, but like everyone else, unable to solve her problem. Hanna has little money and 8 kids. She simply cannot afford to rent a place even WITH rent subsidy, yet there are no public flats available, in spite of her eligibility.

That means the streets with her 8 young daughters. There is a long list of eligible people waiting for public housing, but no flats have been constructed in Tel Aviv nor Jaffa over the last 10 years.

Today we learned the police will probably come to evict her tomorrow. We need your help tomorrow.

The address is Shem HaGdolim 6, Jaffa.

Hanna really needs your HELP. But it is not only about Hanna, it's about the right to a roof above our heads for all of us, the right to live, to have a home.

Mugging the poor

Yesterday, three young guys from Jaffa robbed a Chinese migrant labourer in the area of Jaffa's Gaza street.
They took all his money.
Chinese migrant labourers usually pay very large amounts of money to manpower agencies (aka slave traffickers) when coming to the country to work. Often they have mortgage their and the families' homes to make the payment and as a result they have to work for months and sometimes years almost without pay, in order to return the loan. During the weekends, when the "official" construction sites lay idle, they tend to do their own thing, painting homes and doing small repair jobs to at least have some money in their pockets. They often carry around all their savings, as banks for a number of reasons are not really an option for them.
Thus, they become easy targets for muggers and robbers. As the Chinese labourers usually have work visas, they can go to the police, which is what happened in this case. Three arrests have been made. I just hope the victim will get his hard earned money back.

Rationed Rice - Back to the "tsena"?

Just heard it on the news, rice is being rationed in some of the super market chains in Israel, due to the higher global energy prices.
But as the dollar exchanger ate vis a vis the NIS has gone down, for Israeli transporters the fuel price has not REALLY gone down, so something doesn't add up.
How much of this is "real" and how much is it hysteria and perhaps a cynical manipulation by the supermarket chains? After all, they bought that rice for the old prices ages ago.
Yesterday i read the main buyers in the US of cheap rice are restaurants and they made a run on some supermarkets because they didn't appreciate having to pay a little more prior to a price hike. However they created a chain reaction: the perceived shortage became a real one when more people made a run being scared of there being no rice. Stores ran out, stated they would ration and thus even more people made the run.
Yes, rice will become more expensive and that is no joke, as it is a basic staple. But the run and the rationing? Right now?
What is the real dynamic behind it? Globalism? Differential use of resources such as land? Control over markets and stocks to create artificial shortages in order to get a better price?

Murder at the "Gagon", the Jaffa shelter for the homeless

The body of a man appearing to be in his forties (but homeless often look much older than they really are, life on the streets is rough and tough on the human body) was found early this morning at the entrance of the Jaffa "Gagon" shelter for the homeless.

"Gagon" is Hebrew for "small roof".
Today Tel Aviv has a few "gagonim", the Jaffa one is for men with addiction problems and in the Tel Aviv central bus station area there is another one for homeless women. There is also another one for non-addicted men. And many more are needed. Homeless people sleep in corners, in ruins, in building sites, on park benches and in the area of the central bus station. Or in bus stops in the main streets, or in the lovely little park next to the HaBima Theatre and the Rubinstein pavilion. Some construct small shelters out of boxes and plastic bags. Others try to attract as little attention as possible, so they will not be evicted by the neighbours.

During the day hours, when the Jaffa shelter is closed, many of the addicted homeless men hang around in the northern part of Jerusalem Boulevard begging for money from the drivers stopping at the traffic lights. Some give, others look straight forward, as if they do not see anyone, or play with the buttons of the car stereo or advanced GPS system. Homeless are sort of "see through" to many people, i guess.
Yet, each of them has a story to tell, and usually it is sad; Migration, alienation, a ruined marriage, unemployment. But once life was different, there were hopes, ideas and dreams.

This weekend's "Ha'aretz tells about 1000 homeless teenagers and young people on the Tel Aviv streets. Elem, an NGO, operates a day-center for the young, but no shelter. The young homeless have no where to sleep. Unless a cheap hotel with a client is considered "somewhere to sleep".

A man lost his life. There are wounds on his body. A fight between drug or alcohol addicts , they say. He hasn't yet been identified, apparently he wasn't one of the gagon's "regulars".
What kind of person was he?
Did he have a good childhood, with games and fun and laughter? Was he a good student or was school more of a punishment to him? Did he create anything or keep his poems in a drawer? Did he love anyone and was he loved? By whom? Will anyone cry for him? Will there be a minyan at his burial?
Will his grave be unmarked?


Homelessness is a matter of social justice. Homelessness is NOT God-given. It's a problem that CAN and SHOULD be solved, Shelters are not more than an emergency solution.
The Tel Aviv municipality started a special welfare unit for the homeless. I tried to contact them just before the holiday in order to receive aid for a young woman with retardation who has been -on and off- out on the streets for the last three years. They did not answer the phone nor return calls.

Talk on the street is that three people, a woman and two men, have been arrested or at least brought in for interrogation.

Halamish's little bag of tricks

In Jaffa there are several public housing apartments boarded up instead of being in use by the 200+ approved families on the waiting list.

To be approved for public housing, you need to be very poor (completely long term-dependent on social insurance payments only, due to e.g. disability and have at least 4 children, or a one-parent family social insurance dependent family, with at least three children). You need to take out an eligibility document, which needs to be renewed every 2 years (which costs money and is quite a procedure).

Families stay on the waiting list for many years. Some get tired or are to poor to renew the eligibility document (or realize that it leads only to more waiting so why bother?) so they no longer appear on the list, as they move in with family to live under impossible conditions (18 people in a small 2 bedroom flat) so the real needs are even more than appear on the list.
More over, there are some 500 eviction and demolition orders so the list will become even longer.

We (the popular committee against home demolitions, of which i am an active member) are trying to find out exactly how many flats are not in use. We know for a fact some flats have been empty for more than a year.
Halamish explains the flats are not fit for living because the Housing Ministry is not providing the money for the necessary renovations.
In a few cases i know for a fact this isn't true: there might be need for some minor repairs, but not more. e.g. the flat squatted by H and her 8 children (from which she was kicked out this week, onto the streets) was in a very fair condition, the windows had been taken out by Halamish themselves) to prevent squatting yet the flat had been empty for over more than a year.

Of course in other cases it may be quite true, but it isn't the whole truth. Last January Oreib Said Ahmad and her family were evicted from their home in Al Ajami's Etrog Street. The apartment they lived in had been renovated some years ago in a sloppy and dangerous manner and 2 of the rooms have serious problems. However, these are construction problems of a type that can be easily taken care of. The apartment is large and could easily house a family with 8 children. Yet it stands empty and boarded up since the eviction and the renovation has not started.
Yet there are 200+ families on the waiting list.

No money for renovations?
Weird, because that same Housing Ministry pays the 200 + families on the waiting list 1.200 NIS rent subsidy every month for renting housing on the private market.

Somehow the facts don't add up.

Or perhaps they do. Because when M. a disabled woman in the 4th month of her pregnancy and her disabled husband asked for public housing (they live in a privately rented flat on the 3rd floor no elevator). M has been informed by her doctor that from the 5th month of her pregnancy she will need to be in a wheelchair and her disabled husband will not be able to carry her in her chair up and down the three floors. They have been trying to find another flat (bottom floor or in a building with an elevator), but nothing they can afford (with rent subsidy), is available.
Halamish offered them a solution "within 48 hours" - if they will move to Lod. Right, to Lod. This is what they offer other families as well.
M. and her husband need and regularly receive the help (due to the couple's disabilities) of their extended family, who all live in Jaffa. In Lod , that help will not be available, therefore that "generous offer" is NOT a solution.
Jewish families can move to other public housing in Tel Aviv (e.g. or perhaps Bat Yam), but Arab families do not have that choice, as there are no Arab schools, mosques nor churches in Tel Aviv nor in Bat Yam. Therefore, Jaffa is their only option.
If all these poor and often weakened families move to Lod (which already is a completely marginalized slummy dysfunctional town), Lod will become even more desperate, as will the families, when their social networks will be broken.
The logical thing would be to construct more public housing in Jaffa. Not as another slummy estate, but as a part of each new building erected.
Building permits should be conditional upon allocating at least 15% of the flats for public housing in EACH project constructed in Jaffa, to be certified, guaranteed and maintained by the housing ministry.

Yet Halamish is doing something completely different: they are now offering people on the waiting list a deal: 10 years of larger rent subsidy (up to about 1800 NIS monthly) without having to renew the eligibility document. On first view, this sound like a good deal. The private market rent of a 2 bedroom "shikun" flat on the southern part of Jaffa's e.g. Jerusalem boulevard is about 2800 -3000 NIS. The offer takes the family off the waiting list for ten years. It SEEMS like a good deal and attractive to some of the absolutely desperate waiting list families.

But the deal carries a payload: 10 years is a long period of time. When a family enters a public housing flat, it's for life. If , however, the family accepts this deal, after 10 years the children will have grown up and once a child is 18+, he or she is no longer counted. Thus, the family may no longer be eligible for public housing after 10 years, as they no longer meet the criteria. Yet knowing the poverty life cycle, they probably will be as poor as before if not poorer. Halamish shorten the waiting list using a trick, but not really solving the problem.

The true solution (as poverty will not be ended so easily) lays obviously in construction for public housing.
Not 1 public housing flat has been constructed in Jaffa over the last 10 years, (although Halamish bought one small building with very large flats for eligible large and poor families) and that is where the root of the problem lays.
Jaffa has a very large poor population. The prices of housing have risen beyond all proportions. And Jaffa's sons and daughters (even of the middle class) can no longer afford housing in Jaffa. For Jewish families other neighbourhoods in Tel Aviv are an option. For Arab families this option doesn't exist, as there are no schools nor community and religious services in those areas. Their only option is in Jaffa.

Halamish and Amidar do not even consider construction in Jaffa. The municipality calls it "attracting strong populations" and i call it ethnic cleansing.

Passover, 2008