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Why are they here? Are they going to toss us out?

October 17, 2008

Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi

Evictions are a common thing and no longer news in Georgia; it is just part of the regular rigmarole and a daily occurance.  Everyone has grown accustomed that people are evicted from their homes without any concern as to their plight. Nobody seems to care as to what might happen next with such homeless people. There are many incidents of “tossing people” from their homes. All the incidents look like each other: “You must go. Where? It is up to you,” this is what the government says to these people while ousting them from houses.

The Kutaisi city government ordered to oust 26 families from the former Kutaisi Military College building. The socially excluded people who had been settled in the College building based on the order of the same Kutaisi local government are now facing homelessness. They say they will not leave the building they repaired at their own expense; they did not even eat at times in order to save up the money to make repairs to the building.

“My husband used to work in the Military College. After the college stopped existing and the college was burglarized, he was offered the opportunity to live in the College building in exchange for providing guard services. So that is how we started staying the College building, and many years have since passed. We have saved the building from being burgled many times. Now we are being told that we must leave and we have nothing to do with this building. All 12 members of our family have been living in a one and a half room-flat. I have one son who is in prison and a total of six grandchildren. Where shall I go? If I had another place to live I would go. I would not live in such terrible conditions,” states Lia Kobakhidze.

There are 25 families living in the same building together with the above-mentioned family. All of them are extremely poor and have no other place to go. However, it is not considered as an excuse for the local government. They want to evict socially excluded people and settle IDPs in the building of former Military College in their place.

“The building will be repaired and the IDPs from Upper Abkhazia and Shida Kartli Regions will live there until they are able to return to their homes. As for those people who have been living in the building must now go elsewhere,” stated Kakha Koridze, head of Kutaisi Service of Apartment Fund Registration and Management.

He says that neither he nor anyone else permitted these persons to live in the College building in the first place. However, no one can recall even till now that those people had allegedly lived there illegally. Not even when the illegally residents repaired the abandoned and looted building and took up housekeeping.

“By the way, during the war Kakha Koridze himself came to us and advised not to leave the College building. He said it was planned to bring IDPs to Kutaisi and settle them in the Military College building. He told us to stay in the building in order to maintain our homes. Everyone was escaping as IDPs at that time. However, we stayed behind. Today the same Kakha Koridze tells us that everything has already been decided and we must now leave the place. I understand that the situation that Georgia faces is difficult but there are already so many IDPs in Kutaisi, and somehow they must be provided with shelter. However, it is not an excuse for helping one person at the expense of another. All parties are facing extremely dire conditions. Our president says that the government must do everything for Georgian society so not to have any poor people.  Has he forgotten that we are those poor people and we need help? We are being evicted from houses and this comes at a time when winter is rapidly approaching. We now have no alternative place to live. Is this how the government combats poverty? Do you call this fair treatment?” say inhabitants of the former College building.

They have sent numerous appeals to various state bodies. They even asked the President of Georgia to assign them a place to live. The president administration responded by sending an appeal to the Imereti Regional administration, the text of the appeal is as follows: “According to the Part I of the Article 80 of the General Administrative Code of Georgia we have sent you the collective appeal of D. Mushkudiani, J. Chikvaidze and others to take appropriate measures. Please, inform the applicants and the president administration about your decision regarding the case,”

Despite the instructions of president’s administration neither applicants and assumedly, nor the president’s administration was informed about the Imereti Regional administration’s decision. Up coming evictions can be considered as “appropriate measures” taken by the regional administration.

“We, the adults will survive the situation somehow but the kids; they are the ones that are stressed. Every time strangers enter our yard they ask with fear- why are here? Are they going to evict us? Where shall we live? The government does not want to listen to us. What if we come to a common decision? We agree on IDPs’ settlement in our building. We can live together. Those who live in two- room flats can move to a one-room flat. It is not a problem. We are only asking not to evict us and destroy our lives, like the head of our Municipality did once,” stated Eka Ghonghadze.

There is another abandoned building near the College. The building is of similar size and conditions as the College. The IDPs can also be placed there. However, apparently, a German international organization who took responsibility of settling IDPs chose the Military College building. According to the decision of Kutaisi local administration the IDPs from Kodori Gorge will be placed in the Military College building when the repairs are completed.

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