Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem • Hacker News Board

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#771

Post by southerntofu » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 9:42 AM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #344

southerntofu wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a legal standpoint, assaulting people is illegal. Assaulting them in their residence (trespassing) could be even more illegal. They definitely could take you to court. From a moral standpoint, do you realize you're advocating for the mafia here? That's exactly what private mafia companies have been doing for years. Rightful owners enjoying their property are already well protected by the law and the police (too…

The okupas are the ones running the extortion racket. If anyone is acting like the Mafia, it's the people illegally occupying the house and demanding money to leave. What happens in the US is that the land owner hires people to squat in the house. They don't lay a finger on the real squatters. They just take up all the rooms and generally make it annoying to live there until they leave. Then they get paid by the land…

> If anyone is acting like the Mafia, it's the people illegally occupying the house and demanding money to leave.

People demand housing, not money. It's not a racket that people are homeless and need a place to live. It's funny how you go into conspirational thinking that quick. It's more concerning that you think it's better to pay the anti-squat mafia tons of cash, rather than give the same amount to the squatters to leave the place so they can find another home.

> This has resulted in lots of funny videos where squatters get angry at other squatters for squatting.

Just because you live in a squat doesn't mean anyone can come and live there. It's your residence, not a public space. There's enough empty dwellings to house everyone decently. That doesn't make it a moral obligation if you are struggling and squat a home to house every single homeless person that comes by. I mean, you don't have a greater moral obligation for that than someone who rents or owns their home.

It's not hypocrisy to get angry at assholes trying to ruin your life when you're already low on cash and living in precarious housing. It's cruel that you would find human misery "funny".

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#772

Post by southerntofu » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 9:44 AM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #699

Levitz wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain has exceptionally low wages in the IT sector though, taking cost of living into account and all.

Why don't people move to a place with higher wages? Spain a member of the EU. And, why do people enter IT in Spain, if the wages are so terrible?

Where would you move, and how? Wages are not better in surrounding countries, unless you work in specific companies it's not easy to get in. You also need the opportunity. Most people living paycheck-to-paycheck have little time and mental space to radically change their situation...

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#773

Post by lomase » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 9:47 AM UTC

nec4b wrote: post #559

wyre wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not arguing that owning property in a tourist area requires work (unless you're paying a property manager to do it for you), but I could never imagine owning a vacation property to be squarely middle class. Upper-middle class, at the very least.

Building a small house or cabin in the woods with the help of friends and family is an upper-middle class thing for you, really?

Land is pretty expensive in Spain.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#774

Post by southerntofu » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 9:52 AM UTC

chipdart wrote: post #734

kaskakokos wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Spain, I have friends from both ends of the spectrum: those speculating with houses and those who cannot afford to buy one. We can blame the okupas, calling them lazy if that suits you. But we are missing half the story if we don't consider the other end of the spectrum: people buying property purely for speculative investment. For example, consider the housing crisis in Majorca [1]. Since we have enough mo…

> We can blame the okupas, calling them lazy if that suits you. But (...) I think you are completely missing one of the main origins of okupas in Spain: organized crime involved in extortion schemes. I personally witnessed a case where individuals took over a store lot previously occupied by a restaurant. As the story goes, the restaurant operator tried to negotiate lowering rent to no success, followed by spending m…

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Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#775

Post by lomase » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 9:54 AM UTC

its_ethan wrote: post #580

dr__mario wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you define that "middle-class", please? If you live purely from housing, you are not middle-class.

> If you live purely from housing, you are not middle-class. Someone could be a landlord and only be taking home like $50k per year as "salary". You're saying that person is not middle-class?

For context a very senior developer only makes 60k a year in Spain.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#776

Post by southerntofu » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 9:57 AM UTC

thegrim33 wrote: post #711

kerkeslager wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people angry about squatters are thinking that squatters are squatting for political reasons, because for people angry about squatters, this is a political issue. For squatters, this isn't primarily a political issue, it's primarily a survival issue. Squatting in the summer house of a CEO does solve your survival need for shelter, but it leaves a bunch of your other survival needs unmet because you're far awa…

> The reality is that while squatters might hold political beliefs, few people would choose to squat if they had other housing options Here in Seattle, time and time again, studies are done which show the majority of homeless, when offered shelter, turn it down and prefer to live on the streets. Which seems to completely contradict your claim that they would make use of housing options. Maybe Seattle homeless are dif…

At least here in France, the "housing" they offer is just a mattress in a huge room with no intimacy and dangerous people around. Most homeless people are skeptical at first, but after getting robbed/assaulted they certainly will refuse temporary housing for the rest of their life.

If the authorities really cared about the homeless, they would requisition empty dwellings and assign them individually so people have a proper home to rebuild their life.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#777

Post by hollerith » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 10:03 AM UTC

southerntofu wrote: post #776

thegrim33 wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is that while squatters might hold political beliefs, few people would choose to squat if they had other housing options Here in Seattle, time and time again, studies are done which show the majority of homeless, when offered shelter, turn it down and prefer to live on the streets. Which seems to completely contradict your claim that they would make use of housing options. Maybe Seattle homeless are dif…

At least here in France, the "housing" they offer is just a mattress in a huge room with no intimacy and dangerous people around. Most homeless people are skeptical at first, but after getting robbed/assaulted they certainly will refuse temporary housing for the rest of their life. If the authorities really cared about the homeless, they would requisition empty dwellings and assign them individually so people have a…

Why would you want the authorities to requisition dwellings when they could buy them instead?

What is it about this issue that makes so many people wish to treat landlords harshly?

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#778

Post by m000 » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 10:03 AM UTC

jjav wrote: post #586

kaskakokos wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Spain, I have friends from both ends of the spectrum: those speculating with houses and those who cannot afford to buy one. We can blame the okupas, calling them lazy if that suits you. But we are missing half the story if we don't consider the other end of the spectrum: people buying property purely for speculative investment. For example, consider the housing crisis in Majorca [1]. Since we have enough mo…

> But we are missing half the story if we don't consider the other end of the spectrum No, not really. Theft is not the answer. Consider laws restricting how many houses a person can own, or maybe an increasing property tax on each unit. These are good solutions. Condoning theft has no other side to the story, it's always wrong.

> Consider laws restricting how many houses a person can own, or maybe an increasing property tax on each unit. These are good solutions.

Won't somebody please think of the investors? /s

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#779

Post by shoulderfake » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 10:40 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #358

rudnevr wrote: post #264

I live in Spain and own property in Spain. There's clearly a gap between imaginary noble okupas addressing housing crisis via occupation of unused bank property and reality of weed smoking anarchists and their collaborating deoccupying mafia harassing mostly not-so-rich middle class, who can't afford the security measures the rich can. It's not a small problem, there's like 12K cases per year last time I checked. Eve…

> There's clearly a gap between imaginary noble okupas addressing housing crisis via occupation of unused bank property and reality of weed smoking anarchists and their collaborating deoccupying mafia harassing mostly not-so-rich middle class, who can't afford the security measures the rich can. I had a friend who bought a house that needed a lot of work. Before he could get started on the remodel, someone broke in t…

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Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#780

Post by emptyfile » Fri, Jun 07, 2024, 10:40 AM UTC

passwordle wrote: post #658

tiborsaas wrote: post #351

A friend of mine acquired an investment property in Spain and after a while okupas moved in, lock changed etc. A woman with two children. They were clearly helped with an organized team to get into that place. The sad resolution after lots of headache and thinking was to pay the invaders the 5000EUR they demanded to move out. There was some followup information about what happened after this. She was picked up by a c…

> There was some followup information about what happened after this. She was picked up by a car and taken to the next place to occupy. I'm so sorry to hear that your friend eventually had to sell his vacation home. Fuck that poor woman and her two kids, if they're so poor they should live on the streets in the dirt where they belong !

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