Poor families beating eviction in Spain crisis →

sinidentidades:

The walls of the apartment are cracked and patched with damp, but the faded family photographs of Maria Luisa Brana, her husband and their four children, are still hanging.

Eight months ago the five of them — all jobless, like millions in Spain’s recession — faced being thrown out for failing to pay their mortgage.

Unlike many families, they have beaten the odds.

With legal help from the PAH, a citizen protest movement fighting against a wave of evictions across Spain, they managed to get their order to leave cancelled.

“No one else would listen to me. You feel powerless. At the same time you know that you owe that money and you feel guilty,” said Maria Luisa, a 52-year-old with grey hair and a piercing gaze.

The campaign provided legal support and persuaded the bank to let the family stay in their home and pay rent.

Maria Luisa bought the apartment in Villaverde, a working class suburb of Madrid, in 2005 during Spain’s building boom.

Three years later, when the boom went bust, the family was all unemployed and Maria Luisa had 140,000 euros ($185,000) of debt. Their home was seized by the bank.

She recalls the “shame and anger” she felt as she and her husband, an unemployed cook, and all her grown-up children feared ending up in the street.

“I am not a delinquent,” said Maria Luisa, a former food-handler. “I didn’t pay because I was poor.”

Like many homeowners facing eviction in Spain, she turned in desperation to the citizen-run Platform for Mortgage Victims (PAH).

She now lives on unemployment benefits of 420 euros a month, “plus what my father-in-law gives,” she told AFP.

The family pays a social housing rate of 350 euros a month secured for them by the PAH, with the right to inhabit the apartment for seven years.

“It’s still not much relief. If I get one month behind with the rent, they’ll take the apartment,” she said.

Economic worries aside, she had a heart attack a few weeks ago.

Under current Spanish law, a bank can pursue a borrower for the remaining balance of a loan if the value of the seized property does not cover it.

(Source: jamesbadgedale, via lightcommasticks)

schrödingers brat: if sexuality is to be thought of as a thing that can be valid it must... →

schrodingersbrat:

if sexuality is to be thought of as a thing that can be valid it must be valid in and of itself. even if someone “chose” their sexuality, that’s still valid. i’m sick of the argument of sexuality only being acceptable because people don’t have a choice or because they were “born that way” because…

(Source: mechabrat)

I am Oliver.

(Source: jacknicholson, via michellelynking)

cat ass: infjconfessions: 48 hours to ban bee killers dustedsunshine: bryarly:... →

infjconfessions:

48 hours to ban bee killers

dustedsunshine:

bryarly:

pretentiousteatime:

janecrocker:

cesia:

This is of utter importance, I HOPE everyone of my followers KNOW the consequences of bees going extinct. There is no other animal or insect on…

(via look-out-kid)

ATTENTION FOLLOWERS

I’m going to be making a new tumblr and will likely discontinue using this one.

If you want to know the new URL, send me a message OFF OF ANONYMOUS and I will let you know it if I feel comfortable letting you have it.

Things have been/are changing a lot in my life and I need a new space on the web.

(via the-mau-meow)

"Strangely, Americans see immigration reform as a way to “solve” a problem, when really it represents a historic opportunity for Americans to embrace their country’s unique Latino personality – in the same way that English Canada acknowledged its French component 50 years ago. Latino culture and the Spanish language are not “foreign” to the United States. They were present on the continent before the foundation of the United States. In fact, the 21 (other) Spanish-speaking countries in the world consider the U.S., at least partly, as one of their own."

The U.S. needs to embrace its Latino personality - The Globe and Mail

Really interesting angle. Thanks, Canada.

(via savage-america)

(via knowledgeequalsblackpower)

nevver:

Potions, The Happiness Brewery

(via even-a-small-love)

fat-birds:

Mauriora the White Kiwi :D

(via onwardonwords)

"Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering."

Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements (via iwywaw)

(Source: larmoyante, via nouveaulune)

(via theintentionalife)

sassy-kenway:

WTF

Subject: THIS IMAGE SHOULD BE SEEN IN THE WHOLE WORLD

While magazines and TV chains report about the lives and love affairs of movie actors and actresses, football players and other celebrities, the Chief of the Kayapo tribe heard the worst news of his entire life: 

Mrs. Dilma, the president of Brazil, has given her approval for the construction of an enormous hydroelectric central (the world’s third largest one).

This means the death sentence for ALL the tribes living at the shores of the river because the barrage will flood more or less 400 000 hectares of the forest. 

More than 40 000 natives will have to find other living surroundings where they will be able to survive. 

The destruction of the natural habitat, the deforestation and the disappearance of several species of plants and animals will be a fait accompli. 

We know that a simple image is the equivalent of a thousand words, it shows the price to be paid for the “quality of life” of our so-called “modern comforts.”
There is no space in the world anymore for those who live differently. Everything has to be smoothed away, that everyone, in the name of globalization must lose his and her identity and way of living.

If this enrages you, I urge and implore you to forward this message to all your friends, relatives and acquaintances. 

Thank you in the name of life, nature and biodiversity.

©Hans van Raam

(Source: drug-fairy, via the-shortest-sunflower)

View high resolution

(Source: warlike, via uglygirlsclub)