While the current mayor, Gustavo Pérez, remains silent, his predecessor and current first deputy mayor, Airam Puerta, has not been shy about acknowledging that “the eviction of the casualties It’s a very complex issue.” He admitted the right of the neighbors to want to return to their homes, evicted in March of last year due to works on the slope of that coastal nucleus, with the commitment that they would last four months. However, in September they came to a standstill, because the City hall He refused to pay the extra cost of the same: from 345,000 euros budgeted, to one and a half million euros.
The joint venture responsible for the works then undertook to pay the rents of those individuals or families who could prove that they had their only home in Las Bajas. In the end, there were seven who were able to confirm this point and all of them were rehoused in different apartments in the municipality, with the payment of 800 euros per month, as is the case of Ana and her children, aged 12 and two. However, since September, when the City Council resolved the contract with the construction company, the latter stopped paying the rents, with which the debt on some floors reaches 9,600 euros. Thus, the owners of these properties denounced the non-payment before the Court and since Wednesday the notices with an eviction order have begun to reach the tenants, in the case of Ana for June 20.
Faced with this situation, Airam Puerta declared that “the City Council regulations, although aid has gone from 1,000 to 2,500 euros, does not allow us to pay rent permanently. Yesterday we found out about those eviction notices and now we are looking at the possibility that those neighbors can return to their homes, but, for this, as I indicated to their lawyer, they would have to request a technical report that guarantees that there is security in the area. , something that I understand is like that, because before there was a cracked massif of basalt and now it is compacted with shotcrete”.
Another of the solutions that Puerta presented to lift the seal is that Social Services issue a vulnerability report for those affected and the eviction of rents can be paralyzed, while waiting for 26 social homes that the Government of the Canary Islands has to build in the municipality , a work that has yet to go out to tender.
