Red Emma’s

Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH)/ Platform People Affected by Mortgages

The PAH was born in February 2009 in Barcelona as a citizen's movement focused on the right to housing. The main aim of the PAH is to denounce the dramatic situation suffered by thousands of families who are unable to pay their mortgages, facing foreclosure processes and evictions. The PAH makes visible the violence of such processes, informs public opinion of the horror that is the perpetual debt that remains after losing your home according to the Spanish Mortgage's Law, and demands political solutions to Public Administrations. The PAH is a political (but non party-oriented) movement in which people directly affected and supporters fight together against this problem. We take actions in many different fields (political, trials, communicative, emotional, etc.) to create empowerment and promote legal changes that respond to those who are directly affected, and in a broader framework, propose solutions to fulfill the right to housing for all the citizenship. The 3 basic and emergency demands of the PAH are:

1- Cancelling mortgage debt upon handover of the property to the bank;

2- The immediate prevention of evictions;

3- Transformation of the homes in the hands of financial institutions into 'social rents'.

Given the centrality of mortgage debt to the expansion of financial capitalism in Spain, the PAH has come into direct conflict with the banking sector as well as the government which prioritizes that sector above all else.

Examples of actions carried out:

In the Stop Evictions campaign we use institutional mechanisms to delay the eviction and put pressure on the bank using media and social networks. If none of this works, we resist evictions by making a public call to turn up on the day to block the legal authority and police.

Obra Social campaign denounces that while in Spain banks are starting foreclosure processes and accumulating empty houses, thousands of evicted people have no place to go and the Government refuses to give real solutions. The PAH recovers these buildings as social housing for these families.

With a People's Legislative Initiative campaign we needed 500.000 signatures to propose a legislative change. We collected almost 1.5 million but the Government refused to discuss the proposal.

After, we started the Escrache campaign to persuade those politicians that had expressed their opposition. Diverse non-violent actions in the particular houses of these politicians were organized in which people explained their situation and asked them to vote “yes”.

About the documentary 'Sí se puede [Yes, we can]. Seven days with PAH Barcelona'

From the authoring collective, 'Comando Video' (Silvia González-Laá, Pau Faus y Xavi Andreu):

''Sí se puede. Seven days with PAH Barcelona' is a daily account of the Platform of People Affected by Mortgage Barcelona in what could be a week of its tireless activity. Departing from the concrete and the everyday, the documentary tries to explain the complexity and diversity of a movement that has spread throughout the state and has been a real challenge for civil society to government policies and financial institutions after the economic and human disaster which marked the bursting of the housing bubble.

Seven interviews (combined with images collected for more than one year) lead the viewer through the different activities performed weekly in PAH Barcelona, illustrated with case studies and anecdotes of everyday life. From the Welcome Assemblies, Coordination and State-wide PAH to the Mutual Aid Group, the 'Obra Social' Campaign or Advocacy and Action in the Banks, this documentary has put cameras in the heart of the organization to visualize, in addition to the drama, the huge invisible work behind the PAH and the process of transformation and empowerment of people who compose it.'

What is 'Comando Video'?

'Comando Video' was born in early 2013 almost impromptu. We were three people who had come to the PAH with different backgrounds and interests but with one thing in common: we worked in audio-visual production and wanted to put our experience in service of the fight against evictions.

Together we have made more than 40 videos for PAH, both “guerrilla“ (document actions, escraches [home and workplace interventions], evictions, press conferences or demonstrations) and “campaign“. With this documentary we collect and share some of our experiences, to bring to the public a view of the movement hardly found in the media: from the inside out.  

Mortgaged Lives, book by PAH members Ada Colau and Adrià Alemany (English Translation by Michelle Teran): http://www.joaap.org/press/mortgagedlives.html

A note in Spanish about audio-visual representations of the fight against evictions: http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2014/08/07/actualidad/1407436777_956749.html

An interview with PAH member Lucía Delgado http://norhetorike.com/2013/09/16/interview-with-lucia-delgado/

The web page of PAH's international committee http://afectadosporlahipoteca.com/2014/04/03/pah-international-committee/

Spain in the Circuit of European Capital http://permanentcrisis.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-weakest-link.html