Gentrification: The House on Florianska

 

Florianska Street is at the heart of the gentrification process.

The House on Florianska Street

   

The third house on the left in this photo is 8 Florianska St. It was built in 1911-1912. After the Second World War, it was a public housing tenement.

In 1995, a fire broke out on the roof of the building. Over the next 15 years, we can see that, although much of Praga is falling apart, and most old houses desperately need repairs, it often "takes a fire" on the roof to move people out of attractive property - which is then often repaired, sold or developed in record speed.

In theory, the city is obliged, if it is to repair some house, to move people out temporarily and to return them to their houses within one year. In theory. Because although this is the law, few people ever come back to their old houses. In most cases, city bureaucrats even misinform people of their rights, and just send them packing.

The courtyard of Florianska 8 is a far cry from the typical one in Praga.

What happened to Florianska 8 after the fire? It was renovated and the apartments sold to bourgeoise people. It is probably the most expensive real estate in the area (although the competition is growing fast.

Unfortunately, the former tenants were not so lucky. The only one who managed to get back into the now prestigious address was a local councilperson.

From time to time, we come across the hard-luck stories of the former tenants. One woman I know wound up nearby, in a delapidated house with her family. In exchange for her 70 + meter flat at Florianska 8, she was given a 24 meter flat where she still lives with 2 sons, now grown. The living conditions are nothing short of disastrous in that building - as is typical, no central heating, freezing pipes in winter, poor sanitation. The woman, like many people in Praga, had to make a bathroom herself. (Bathrooms are often shared, on the corridor.) Many flats have no kitchens, no showers or baths.

The city doesn't want to give her a new flat. We are trying to help her and lobby on her behalf. But she received another rejection of her application. And the pipes froze and burst this winter, so currently she is without water.

There is nobody who cares about these types of situations in this country. The city bureaucracy is a corrupt mafia,  implementing  a plan to  get rid of the poor.  And there are no independent institutions for appealing the bureaucrats' decisions, even if  they have ignored all the regulations.

Maybe one  day it will be the bureaucrats' offices and yuppy houses burning down and the elite finding itself with no place to go in Praga. But I don't count on it.