Placilla de San Antonio Camp Community Vows to Defend Against Eviction Order

Original article: Campamento Placilla de San Antonio: «Nos costó mucho construir nuestra comunidad y la vamos a defender»

By Andrés Figueroa Cornejo

The community of the Placilla de San Antonio Camp is facing an eviction order slated for February 2027. On September 22, they held a mobilization and press event in front of the Court of Appeals in Valparaíso to share their legal actions aimed at opposing this imminent eviction from their homes.

Gustavo Burgos, the attorney representing the residents, highlighted that «since 2023, numerous evictions have been executed or attempted outside of genuine judicial processes, solely through the protective remedy file.»

«Rather than taking action against specific individuals by demonstrating concrete facts, discussing titles, possessions, family situations, social vulnerabilities, and housing alternatives, a brutal practice has been established, obtaining a general restitution order and extending its effects over entire populations, often composed of hundreds or thousands of people who have never been heard by any court,» the lawyer denounced.

Burgos clarified that «in this context, the civil action presented by the inhabitants of the irregular settlement of Placilla, in the San Antonio commune, constitutes a fact of enormous political, social, and legal importance.»

«This is not simply a new judicial filing in the face of an eviction threat. We are witnessing the first civil action known nationally that seeks to institutionally confront the jurisprudential shift that has recently aligned the courts with the interests of large real estate developers and landowners, undermining the protective intent of the protection remedy,» he emphasized.

Bellavista Real Estate Company

Families at the Placilla camp have pending legal actions before the Supreme Court and civil courts in Viña del Mar, questioning the violation of due process that has put them at risk of losing their homes to Bellavista Real Estate Company, which they accuse of speculative actions concerning the properties involved.

Leveraging these legal actions, the working-class residents of Camp Placilla demand the effective respect for due process guarantees and the opening of negotiation channels to achieve a solution to the conflict, ensuring the permanent settlement of families in the area and preventing an eviction that would directly impact their homes and living conditions.

Social leader Braulio Bulnes explained, «We are experiencing what others suffered before under the governments of Boric and now Kast. Evictions, no proposals, no solutions; discarding all the working groups established over these years where we were asked to follow regular procedures. Essentially, placing us in the endless queue of precarious settlements under the Housing and Urbanism Service program, Serviu.»

«Their policies, their housing programs, are only useful for maintaining officials, and enriching companies that bid for inventories and socio-territorial analyses. From what we’ve seen, the lucrative housing bureaucracy does not rest until evictions are carried out with militarized force,» Bulnes criticized.

Referring to real estate companies’ use of protective resources, the leader claimed, «Justice ultimately favors the powerful in the country and throws working families out on the streets, using gas against babies, grandmothers, and grandfathers.»

«The state apparatus is poised to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. This encapsulates the eviction we oppose with all our might. It has taken us years of hard work to build our community, and we will defend it,» concluded the community representative.

We will continue to provide updates.