Tragic Story of the 21st. century: Evictions in Serbia
The following article is an excerpt from our latest printed Ecosprinter titled Reclaim Your Rights! – The Social Issue. We decided to bring you the articles from this edition in a digital form as well.
by Jelena Aleksic
People have divided thoughts about communism in Yugoslavia. Some will say that it was the worst regime in our history and others will say it was the best one. One thing that no one can deny, however, is that the working class could afford housing.
After the fall of communism in the late ‘80s, socialism took over during the ‘90s. Nineties were the ‘dark years’ as we commonlycall them: we had many wars, inflation, high crime rate, and protests whichended with overruled governments. Even though socialism wasn’tsuccessful in this region, it managed to provide affordable privatization of housing for the families that had been given accommodation during the communist period.That was the biggest recorded privatization in Serbia.
Situation drastically changed at thebeginning of 2000’s. War andinflation drained people economically, which made home buying impossibleand the only affordable optionwas to take out a loan from thebank and then pay it off on a monthly basis.Back then it did seem as a reasonable and affordableoption, but it did not turn out to be such inthe end.
Increased poverty in Serbia and unexpected rise of Swiss Franc (which automaticallyraised the loans taken in SwissFrancs) led to irregular monthlyloan payments. And that is where the bailiffstake the scene. Highly common evictions beginin the year 2016 with the hard work of bailiffs to proceed them.
Bailiffs would organize private auctionswithout notifying theresidents, where they would sell people’s homes if they were late withtheir payments; someone wouldbuy those flats (often the family members of the bailiffs) and after afew weeks would show up infront of people’s doors claiming tobe owners; current residents would be obliged toleave their homes. This is what happened in the case of the 94-year oldMara Dzankovic. Mara Dzankovic is an elderly cancer diagnosedwomen who lived in theapartment with her 40-year-old daughter.Private bailiff Mirjana Dimitrijevic sold theirhome on the private auction because of the debtthey had and in two months period tried to evictthem twice. After the first attempt, Mara had tobe hospitalized because of the stress; in the hospital,doctors gave her the evidence document statingthat she was not in the position to move becauseof her weakness and illness. It didn’t stop thebailiff and the police, however, and after the secondattempt Mara and her daughter were violently evicted and even forced toleave all their personalbelongings including medications for Mara.
On another note, there were a lot of caseswere the owners that had boughta flat during the 2000s fromanother private owner would also be notified thatthey had to leave because their flat was sold tothe new rightful owner because the papers that theyhad signed with the original owner were invalid. This happened in thecase of Tatjana Anicic.Tatjana paid off her apartment in 2007. Eight yearslater, a bailiff appeared at her door and said shehad to move out, following a court ruling in a dispute between previousowners of her apartment. Until that moment, Tatjana didn’t even know that the proceedings were being conductedin court, so she didn’t have the opportunity to presentevidence that would prevent the former ownersof her apartment from settling their mutual dispute to her detriment.When she managed to show herevidence, she was told that she has beentricked by the former owner and that the courtcouldn’t do anything about it. This was one ofthe first cases that went viral.
One of the recent cases is thecase of the family Osman.Since the late ‘90s, the family Osman’s livedand owned the house on a land that the city ofBelgrade recently predicted to be part of a new investmentproject. The Housing and Maintenance of Buildings law from 2016implicates that the city hasthe obligation to provide an appropriate accommodation for people whoare evicted for constructionswith this purpose. The City of Belgradedecided to ignore the law by demolishing the whole house (no people-noobligation re-locatingprinciple) and leaving the family Osman homeless.
During the period of 2016 to this day, manyillegal evictions were attempted. In 2017, the organization “Krovnad glavom” (‘Roof’) was formed. In allthe previous cases mentioned (and the ones thatwere not mentioned) ‘Roof’ managed to stop orpostpone the eviction by using the methods of physicalbarricades. Beside support on the spot, theymanage to live record incidents on social media,raise awareness about this issue, organize manycharity events to support evicted families, rebuildhouses and etc. They had to face many problems:violent attacks towards them, identification by the police, non-existentmedia attention and insufficient number of volunteers on the eviction days.
Without any hesitation, ‘Roof’ has become a part of the political resistance and hope. With the number of 154 households that they saved, they show us that even a small number of people are able to change the course of the events. Without any help, they are going to definitely continue to fight against this regime, to protect and raise awareness about the right to housing for all.
Jelena Aleksic is an activist and a student from Belgrade. She studies environmental science and sustainable development. Jelena is a member of Serbian Green Youth and she is really passionate about green politics, nature, books, food and good wine. Jelena has three dogs which she claims to love more then anything. Her role model is congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and she is hoping that she will meet her one day.