Uncitizenship through Evictions - Irina Zamfirescu

Two years, seven evictions, almost 300 people for whom the only prospect of housing after eviction was the street. The structural violence in Bucharest is as subtle in its manifestations as it is obvious when we look at the city’s evictions. For the evictees, the waiting lists for social housing provide the dramatic dimension of their lack of agency to claim their right to the city. For two years I have been among some of Bucharest’s evictees to understand the mechanisms and the powerlessness of poverty, the state’s stubborn retreat into savage neo-liberal housing policies, and the criminalisation of poverty to the extent that, for urban poor, the very right to a family is challenged.

Read by actress Katia Pascariu, with an illustration by Andreea Moise