Close down a home

Seville, Spain. October 25, 2012. Maricarmen proudly shows a picture of her bedroom before the eviction.
Seville, Spain. October 22, 2012. Maricarmen cries as she explains how they have been forced to squat a home.
Seville, Spain. November 11, 2012. Juan stands in the terrace of their home few days before they moving to the squat.
Seville, Spain. October 25, 2012. Maricarmen checks a flashlight that they will need during the occupation.
Seville, Spain. December 12, 2012. Maricarmen picks the curtain of their rented home days before the occupation.
Seville, Spain. December 12, 2012. Maricarmen The headboard of bed and boxes stand in the bedroom ready to move to the squat.
Seville, Spain. December 12, 2012. Maricarmen and Juan pick their belongings to prepare the move to the squat. The family does not know which empty residential block they will occupy nor exactly when. They must have all the belongings ready because when they receive a call from the occupation organizers, they have to be ready to go out very quickly.
Seville, Spain. November 7, 2012. Maricarmen makes herself up in the bathroom days before the occupation.
Seville, Spain. December 12, 2012. Maricarmen takes a look to their belonging stacked up in the living room.
Seville, Spain. November 7, 2012. Maricarmen´s C.V on the table in the living room.
Seville, Spain. December 12, 2012. Maricarmen takes their belongings out of the home.
Seville, Spain. November 7, 2012. Maricarmen cries as she drives.
Seville, Spain. November 7, 2012. Squatter’s bags packed into a car on the day of the occupation.
Seville, Spain. November 7, 2012. Maricarmen talking on phone during her way to a charity organization.
Seville, Spain. November 24, 2012. The day of the occupation, people gathered to support the squatters in front of the occupied building. The police clash with demonstrators trying to break up the demonstration.
Seville, Spain. November 24, 2012. The day of the occupation, the squatters receive some of their belonging from friends and families. They can’t leave the occupied building in case they run into authorities.
Seville, Spain. November 25,2012. The day after the occupation Maricarmen´s husband Juan, checks their new apartment in the occupied block.
Seville, Spain. December 2,2012. Maricarmen and Juan sit on the floor of the new occupied home. At this moment they don´t have any furniture.
Seville, Spain. December 2, 2012. Maricarmen and Juan store the food and some belongings in a wardrobe in the occupied apartment.
Seville, Spain. December 1, 2012. Juan sits on a chair to have dinner as the rest of the families sits on the floor.
Seville, Spain. November 27, 2012. Food on a table in the occupied block.
Seville, Spain. November 27, 2012. In the occupied apartment there is no electricity and water supply. They use water from a bottle, candles and flashlights.
Seville, Spain. December 2, 2012. Maricarmen and Juan put their bed on top of cardboard to help keep out the cold.

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Maricarmen, 44, and her husband Juan, 60, held steady jobs while raising their two daughters. As Spain’s economic crisis deepened, however, they both abruptly lost their jobs, and eventually even their home, after their bank evicted them because of their failure to meet mortgage payments. However, their downward spiral didn’t end there. In a country with a very limited network of homeless shelters, they were then forced to challenge the law and take a decision that they would never even have imagined a few months ago: join other families to squat together an empty building.  This photo reportage covers the transition from a middle class family to jobless squatters, a path that an increasing number of people in Spain are being forced to take.  Along the way, they have been helped by associations of volunteers that have sprung up to support such destitute families, helping them both with the logistics of their house move as well as preparing them to confront the authorities in order to stay in such illegal dwellings. Even if not all these squatters share the same background, they are now united in their determination to stay afloat despite their economic misfortunes. And their crusade is captured in a simple slogan “Neither homes without people, nor people without homes.”

 

Author
Laura León
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Date 
2012
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