Activists ‘evict’ public-housing companies

Eviction notices plastered on the offices of public-housing companies in cities across the country, to protest companies’ managerial practices.

By BEN HARTMAN
Housing protesters in Jerusalem 521 (R) (photo credit: Ronen Zvulun / Reuters)
Housing protesters in Jerusalem 521 (R)
(photo credit: Ronen Zvulun / Reuters)
Activists plastered eviction notices on the offices of public-housing companies Amidar, Amigar and Halamish in over a dozen cities across the country Wednesday, to protest the companies’ managerial practices.
At the central offices of Amidar in Tel Aviv, activists managed to break in and place an eviction notice on the desk of the company’s general manager. The eviction notices say that they were issued due to a NIS 2.7 million debt accrued by the companies to the state, as a result of the sale of public land since 1999.
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The notice accuses Amidar of forsaking the needs of poor families in Israel, for the sake of reaping profits from the sale of public housing.
In a statement sent out Wednesday from a group calling itself “Occupy Amidar,” activists wrote “Amidar systematically mistreats its tenants through criminal negligence of its buildings, endangering public health, charging market-level rental prices from tenants receiving housing assistance, using threats and intimidation, creating fictitious debts for tenants and evicting hundreds of families from their homes each year, forcing them out into the streets.”
Activists called for the government to ensure that housing laws be implemented in the economic-arrangements law and that the state immediately begin investing sufficient funds in public housing.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Amidar denied claims made by activists that they were reaping profits from the sale of public housing, saying the funds are turned over to the Finance Ministry.
They also accused activists of “waging a campaign of disinformation” and said that even though they have surveillance camera footage in their possession, they do not plan on filing a complaint at the moment.