Under a scorching sun, yesterday morning began the march for housing from Santiago to Valparaíso, seat of the Parliament, which in three days will cover the 130 km distance by foot. The nearly 1500 people, mostly belonging to the Autonomous Housing Movement (MAV) and the Dignified Housing Movement (VID), left from the Barrancas subway station to Highway 68 leading to Congress, to demand to the parliamentarians an urgent approval of the bills that have been sleeping there for more than 3 years.
Accompanying the leaders Juan Vera (MAV) and Héctor Morales (VID), were the deputies Tomás Hirsch (Acción Humanista) and Jorge Teiller (Communist), as well as the mayor of Pudahuel Ítalo Bravo and several councilpeople.
Juan Vera told the press that “Today, in this march that we are going to start, we want to represent all the people who don´t have a house of this country, from Arica to Magallanes,all who live in cramped conditions, those who live in camps and don´t have a place of their own”.
The demands of this action revolve around three axes:
- To make an emergency housing plan to build decent housing for the thousands of homeless families who often have been waiting for more than 10 years.
- To denounce and make transparent the capital gains and speculation that private construction companies and banks carry out with the land.
- The approval of a law of binding plebiscites, in order to give legitimacy to territorial planning and the modification of the regulatory plans of each commune, which up to now depend on the will of the mayors.
With respect to point 2, he pointed out that “we are going to deliver a document containing 1,030 hectares of public land in Santiago alone, on which 50,000 houses could be built. And we call on the regions to also make a land registry for evaluation them in the next government”.
Congressman Hirsch, who has been supporting this movement -whose district he represents in Parliament- with concrete actions for more than 3 years, declared: “I want to highlight the courage of the 1,500 people who are here, mostly women, but on the other hand it seems to me that it is the last straw that we have to organize a gigantic march to gain access to something that is a fundamental human right. I know them, I know the movements that are here, some of them have been waiting for 15 years, and I hope that they are taken seriously by the Congress and the government. We will be waiting for them on Tuesday and we want them to be received by the highest representatives of both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.”
Today the march will continue its course through Curacaví and Placilla, and is expected to arrive tomorrow, Tuesday 9, at the Parliament. We will continue covering its arrival.
