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Evicting the Valparaiso settlements would disgrace Chile
The evictions of the informal settlements could make 4,000 families homeless. The ‘anti-usurpation law’ being used is one of the worst setbacks to Chile’s housing policy since Pinochet, writes MIGUEL LAWNER
A view of the Valparaiso area [Roman Bonnefoy / Creative Commons]

IT HAS been more than five years since the hills of San Antonio began to be populated, giving rise, in short, to what is today the largest land seizure in Chile. It is estimated that 4,000 families have settled in this area over the last five years.

In August 2023 the Court of Appeals of Valparaiso (Chile) ordered the eviction of 254 hectares of the Bellavista Sector. A final ruling this month by the Supreme Court has confirmed the eviction of all the families and set a six-month deadline to carry it out. 

The authorities in the area, the Carabineros (federal police), have stated that it is impossible to carry out the eviction. We are not living in the times of the military dictatorship, which viciously and violently evicted a thousand families from the Villa San Luis de Las Condes housing estate, who had acquired their flats by all the regulations available at the time.

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