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Discrimination and the Roma Community 2014
Cases of discrimination in housing
1.
Aragon.
Housing.
Direct discrimination.
A Roma girl from Aragón and participant in an FSG development
programme reported that she felt discriminated against for being Roma. She told us that after several attempts
to contact a real estate agent on the phone she was finally told that the owner of the flat explicitly said that she
does not want a Gypsy renting her place. Spaniards or Blacks were fine, but no Gypsies.
This was after the girls had already done all of the paperwork and she was particularly interested in this flat due
to its location. The real estate agency promised to talk to the owner again.
The agency then told the owner that the person interested in renting the flat is Roma and has an income and
employment contract. The owner refused to listen and made it very clear that she didn’t want Roma in her home;
that was her only condition.
This is another clear example of the barriers faced by the Roma Community in accessing decent housing.
2.
Huesca.
Housing.
Direct discrimination.
A meeting was held between the municipality of Huesca, the FSG and
homeowners representatives. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the robberies that had occurred in the
communal garage. Fuel tank caps had been broken and cars broken into. Two of the families living in this block
of flats had been resettled there from the Mártires neighbourhood. Addressing the Roma families the president
of the homeowners association said: “They’re all the same. They don’t know how to live in community. You can
only speak to them individually; when there is more than one that’s the end of the conversation. They’re vengeful
too; if they suspect you’ve done something to hurt them they’ll cut your tyres.”
The attempt made to reason with the president of the homeowners association and raise his awareness regar-
ding the injustice of discriminating against an entire community for isolated incidents was unsuccessful.
3.
Asturias.
Housing.
Direct discrimination.
A family with five children, all with some type of disability between
the ages of 45 and 51, and one of the sisters with an 80% disability went to the FSG in Castrillón (Asturias).
They told us that their house had caught fire due to lightning which caused a short in the wiring. The FSG staff
ran into some difficulties in helping the family deal with the insurance company.
Meanwhile, the family was living in a temporary shelter they had made themselves. The insurance workers finally
finished repairing the house but did a shoddy job and water was seeping in.
The family tried to call the insurance company on numerous occasions but were unable to solve the problem.
Finally, with no prior notice to the family or the FSG, a worker from an company associated with the insurance
company came to the house to assess the damages.
Soon thereafter, the insurance company sent a text message to the owner of the house declaring the case clo-
sed since the policy did not cover damage to the land but only the house itself, claiming that the damage was
caused by movements of earth resulting from misuse by the owners.
We requested a copy of the police report describing the movements of earth (the family had called the police
to have an official record of what had happened) caused by heavy winter rains.
After several months of living in conditions not suited to people with disabilities, i.e. the shack the family had
built on their land to live provisionally, the family decided to fix their home without the help of the insurance
company. The FSG offered to write a letter to the insurer to complain about the way they were treated as
clients, but the family asked us not to intervene as they felt it would be useless. They believed that the insurance
company was ignoring them because they are Roma and they felt discriminated against.