The spokesman for the VOX Municipal Group in Manilva, Antonio Marín, has been forthright about the imminent eviction of 62 homes at number 2, calle Sarmiento, a situation he has described as “the direct result of years of political irresponsibility and institutional neglect”.
Marín recalled that Article 47 of the Spanish Constitution leaves no room for self-serving interpretations, as it establishes that the right to decent and adequate housing is a direct and exclusive obligation of the public authorities. “It is the authorities that must create the conditions necessary to guarantee that right, and it is they, and only they, who must answer when they fail so spectacularly in their task”, he said.
In this regard, the VOX spokesman rejected attempts to shift that responsibility onto citizens or private companies “under the pretext of a false ‘social shield’”. “It is not only an exercise in political cynicism, but a frontal attack on the fundamental right to private property and inheritance, protected by Article 33 of the Constitution. When the State fails to meet its obligations, it cannot expect others to pay for its incompetence”, he stressed.
Antonio Marín framed the current housing access crisis as a direct consequence of decades of failed policies, pointing the finger both at the Socialist Party in the national government and at the Partido Popular in most of the autonomous regions. “Both have shown, with facts and figures, their absolute inability to guarantee a basic constitutional right”, he said.
As an example of this failure, he cited Bank of Spain figures showing a shortfall of 1,800,000 social housing units and the need to build at least 100,000 homes a year, compared with the 14,371 completed in 2024. “This failure admits no excuses or narratives; it is irrefutable proof of the dereliction of duty of those who govern”, he declared.
At local level, Marín denounced that Manilva is a textbook case of poor management, with years of corruption, institutional neglect, lack of oversight, waste of public resources and chronic indebtedness. “All of this has left residents completely unprotected and has seriously degraded part of the housing stock”, he explained, adding that this situation has been exploited by illegal squatting networks that have profited in developments such as Royal Manilva, the Edificio El Mero, the El Hacho area and now calle Sarmiento.
“The case of calle Sarmiento is the exact portrait of a Town Hall that has chosen to look the other way for years”, Marín said, reproaching the fact that, council after council, the choice has been not to act, not to investigate and not to take responsibility. “And now the problem has erupted, with an imminent forced eviction and with residents paying the consequences of prolonged political cowardice”, he added.
The VOX spokesman warned of the absolute opacity surrounding the case, noting that the Municipal Group has no official documentation proving the legality of the purchase, sale or rental of the building. “We do not know how many people are really in a vulnerable situation, how many are illegally occupying homes while having a job and the financial means, or who has profited by handing over keys and renting out properties without owning them”, he said. “It is not that there is no information: it is that nobody has wanted to obtain it”.
Five days before the forced eviction, Marín was clear: “This Town Hall is arriving late, badly and without tools”. In his view, the only possible and realistic measure is to ask the owners once again for an extension, after a first moratorium was “wasted without adopting a single effective solution”.
Finally, Antonio Marín explained that the aim of the VOX Municipal Group with this motion is to force other authorities to assume the responsibility that the Town Hall has evaded, urging it to send the Regional Ministry of Development, Territorial Planning and Housing the documentation needed so that the affected families can join, if they meet the legal requirements, the aid and subsidy programmes of the Plan Vive 2020-2030, regulated by Decree 91/2020.
“It will be the Junta de Andalucía which, after verifying the data submitted by the Town Hall itself, determines who is eligible for the Plan Vive. What cannot be allowed is for municipal neglect to go on serving as an alibi while the problems worsen and residents pay the price”, he concluded.
