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EXPELLED: The police had to help the bailiff when the Jama family was evicted from the apartment where they had lived for ten years. Photo: Bjarte Breiteig
The Oslo City Council confirms the decision to evict the family in Tøyen. Your attorney will take legal action to retrieve the keys.
The Somali family with five children can no longer live in the three-room apartment, because their income last year exceeded the income limit for municipal housing in Oslo.
The bailiff, assisted by armed police, fired them last Wednesday.
Rødt, Venstre, Sp and KrF called on the city council to repeal the eviction and stay the case until the regulations for municipal housing are reviewed.
The opposition did not get the city council and the majority with it.
But the city council decided to ask the city council to consider introducing a temporary halt to evictions of families with children from municipal housing, as long as the corona pandemic continues.
Demand the apartment back
Now the lawyer for the Tøyen family is ready to apply for a temporary injunction against the Oslo city sheriff’s office, demanding that they be allowed to return to their municipal apartment.
– Eviction is illegal. We will immediately attack the case in court, lawyer Olav Lægreid tells VG.
He points out that the family is entitled to a satisfactory replacement housing, but believes that they have not been offered or offered any realistic alternative to the apartment in Tøyen.
READY: Attorney Olav Lægreid represents the family of five who was evicted from their municipal apartment in Tøyen. Photo: Terje Pedersen
– The family is divided and lodged with friends and acquaintances. They have until Monday to collect furniture and belongings in the apartment where they are prohibited, says lawyer Lægreid.
He says he will take several legal actions to get the family back in the apartment.
The city council decided to ask the city council to contact the Old Oslo district, to make sure the family can reconsider the possibility of an initial loan.
The City Council also decided to carry out a comprehensive review of the regulations for the allocation of municipal housing.
– Will review the regulations
– The current case has made clear that the time has come to re-evaluate the 2003 regulations, said councilor for social services Rina Mariann Hansen (Labor Party) in Oslo City Hall on Wednesday.
It promises speed in the revision of the regulations. Hansen also claims that the city council has set aside NOK 1.6 billion to provide new municipal housing for the next four years.
– We are concerned about finding solutions that safeguard the principle of equal treatment and guarantee that all disadvantaged people who need housing have the same opportunities and rights.
CONVERSATIONS: Mohamed Jama speaks with a policeman during the eviction of Hagegata 31 in Tøyen last Wednesday. Photo: Bjarte Breiteig
Hansen says that the municipality of Oslo, in collaboration with the Housing Bank, will find out if start-up loans and other grants can be used in more and better ways.
– The challenge for many who rent municipal housing is to buy in the same area, says the Councilor for Labor, Integration and Social Services.
The income was too high
The family had their application to renew the lease at Hagegata 31 because the parents’ income in 2019 was higher than the indicative income limit for municipal housing.
The eviction sparked a campaign of support and fundraising for the family.
So far more than NOK 1.5 million have been raised. The family’s application for an initial loan for their own home was turned down because the municipality found they were unable to repay the loan.
The family pays SEK 17,500 a month for their 80-square-meter three-room apartment.
The eviction, which was covered for the first time by TV2, has sparked a political debate about social housing policy in a pressured real estate market characterized by extreme inflation.
TØYEN: Hagegata 31 in Tøyen in Oslo was previously owned by the municipality, but the residents bought most of the apartments. Today, only six apartments are municipal. Photo: Mattis Sandblad
– The case bothers many
– It is understandable that the case has generated a huge commitment. The case bothers many of us. It’s so nice to see everyone calling for the family, says City Councilor Rina Mariann Hansen.
She believes that the commitment to the Jama family is to maintain diversity in a district where house prices are under pressure and says it is important to learn from individual cases.
– But our responsibility is, above all, to make good political decisions that ensure good framework conditions and to design a set of rules that guarantees equal treatment, says Hansen.
– The system does not work well
Conservative Anne Haabeth Rygg believes the allocation system is not working well.
– That it has not been done wrong does not mean that what happens to the family is right. This family is not unique. Every year, there are 172 municipal housing evictions, Rygg notes.
Hallstein Bjercke of the Liberal Party believes that the Oslo municipality has behaved in an unworthy manner and Sofia Rana of Rødt emphasized that “the armed police must not drive children out of their homes.”
– Terrible example
– The case is a terrible example of how municipal residents are forced to fall into the poverty trap, said the red politician at the Oslo City Hall on Wednesday night.
Bydel Gamle Oslo has registered 3,000 disadvantaged households that have municipal housing or receive housing benefits to rent privately.
46 households are in line to get municipal housing in the district, 16 of them are families with children.
– Our top priority is caring for those who are most vulnerable and have the biggest challenges in the housing market, says City Director Tore Olsen Pran.
