2023-11-03 18:00:50
The Collective of Integrated Undocumented Volunteers of Brussels (CSPBIB) has occupied a new building located on Chaussée de Gand in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean since Friday, it announced to the Belga agency. The building is mainly occupied by women and children, according to the collective.
This is the third attempt for the CSPBIB to provide shelter to 90 asylum seekers. The previously squatted buildings, an empty hotel on Avenue Louise and the former Yugoslav embassy, were evacuated after threats of eviction.
“The occupation of empty buildings is carried out in order to compensate for the lack of responsibility of public authorities in terms of housing and reception, thus contributing to the invisibility of these people left once again without a solution,” explains the collective. . The asylum seekers were expelled at the end of October from the hotel on Avenue Louise. They were then forced to leave the former embassy after being threatened with “illegal eviction” by the building’s owners, the governments of North Macedonia and Croatia.
Also read “Why not house asylum seekers in hotels? »
The 35 people who resided in the former embassy moved to the former Gécamines headquarters in Watermael-Boitsfort and joined the undocumented people who had already been accommodated in the former headquarters. Some of these people were accommodated in the new building in Molenbeek. “Opening a building to house people forgotten by the government does not constitute a crime,” insists the CSPBIB. ” It’s the only way. »
The Region, “in its competence to combat homelessness, should be able to agree temporary occupations with owners of vacant properties, of which there are many in Brussels,” underlines the collective. This therefore asks the Brussels Region “to present itself as guarantor of building agreements in order to allow the occupation of buildings that have been empty for several years” and thus “respond to the vital urgency of the situation, or even to requisition public or private buildings as permitted by law.
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