Rafał Trzaskowski assured, including during the presidential debate with Karol Nawrocki, that a Warsaw family with a 6-year-old child would not face eviction. He lied – after the election, further legal steps were taken. A few days ago, the family received an eviction ruling without the right to a social housing unit – the Niezależna.pl portal has learned.
Let us return to the final days of the election campaign. During the debate before the second round of the presidential election, Karol Nawrocki asked Rafał Trzaskowski about a shocking case that our portal was the first to report. It concerns a three-person, working family from Warsaw with a 6-year-old child who, from one day to the next, is to be deprived of their current apartment.
Trzaskowski’s assurances
This was what the Capital City of Warsaw wanted. City officials filed a lawsuit to evict the family from their 35-square-meter apartment after they exceeded the municipal tenancy income threshold by just over PLN 200. The lawsuit was filed individually against all family members – the mother, the father, and the 6-year-old boy.
“I want to return to the case of the 6-year-old boy and his parents, whom you, as mayor, forced to be evicted from a municipal apartment. The eviction hearing is scheduled for May 29. As with Marszałkowska 66, you can still show a bit of decency. Since you cannot add or analyze my tax contract, perhaps you can at least find a little decency? Will you stand up for the 6-year-old boy and his family?” Nawrocki asked Trzaskowski.
The Civic Platform candidate replied: “This decision has been suspended. There has been no eviction and there will be no eviction. Because this family has been offered another apartment in cheaper rental construction. This is exactly what I do. Yes, I take care of municipal housing. Do you know why I take care of municipal housing? Because there were various people who tried to buy out apartments with discounts from those who lived in municipal apartments, in order to make money from it. Entire mafias of this type were operating. I brought this practice to an end. […] Unlike you, I react immediately when such signals reach me.” “You had the opportunity to behave decently and declare to all Poles that this family with a 6-year-old boy, like the residents, would return to Marszałkowska 66, but you did not do that. And you take care of municipal housing because there is little of it. You build only 60 units a year,” Nawrocki replied.
On May 29, just before the second round of the election, an eviction hearing was held at the District Court for Warsaw-Śródmieście. The court decided to suspend the proceedings at the request of both parties – Warsaw and the family. A decision was made to attempt an out-of-court settlement of the dispute.
The hearing was held without media participation, with the public excluded.
A few days before the first hearing, Rafał Trzaskowski insisted that the eviction decision “had been suspended.”
“There has been no eviction. There will be no eviction, because this family has been offered another apartment in cheaper rental construction. There is a document in which I propose an apartment to the family in a very modern building, in order to solve this specific problem. As far as I hear, I am solving the problem,” said the Civic Platform candidate for president.
City Hall’s manipulation
We have obtained the full correspondence between City Hall and the family. Warsaw did not present any concrete housing proposal. There was only a vague, several-sentence mention of the rules under which the family could participate in the TBS program and a referral to information on municipal websites. In the eviction lawsuit against the three-person family with a 6-year-old child, city officials did not even request that the family be granted the right to a social housing unit.
In May, the deputy mayor of Śródmieście, Rafał Krasuski, also tried to prove that the city did not want to evict a family with a 6-year-old child. The elections passed – and what turned out? Trzaskowski and the city began further legal battles with the family. The revenge was carried out on January 13 at the District Court for the Capital City of Warsaw.
The manipulation by the city and President Trzaskowski was confirmed on January 13. The family received an eviction ruling without the right to a social housing unit – that is, onto the street. And supposedly there is no such possibility in the capital city. The case from May was suspended under pressure from the media and the election campaign for six months, after which it was resumed and we have the result. This is the image of the empathy and social face of President Trzaskowski – informed the Niezależna.pl portal Urszula Żurańska from the Jolanta Brzeska Warsaw Tenants’ Association.
The family intends to appeal immediately after the ruling and its justification are published.
The decision of the city and Trzaskowski is being criticized by Warsaw Law and Justice (PiS).
“Shame, simply shame. Trzaskowski lied before the whole country that the family received an alternative proposal. Meanwhile, the city consistently demanded eviction in court – onto the street. Unfortunately, we see that in the first instance, effectively. This case unfortunately also shows a certain systemic problem. This власти is against families. This authority has no idea how to help young families obtain a roof over their heads in Warsaw. Housing prices here are enormous, and salaries in the services do not allow many officers to buy an apartment. Yet at the same time, they are allegedly too high to maintain municipal tenancy. Does this authority care about that? It sends people onto the street. This is a sad and symbolic image,” said Sebastian Kaleta, who heads the capital city structures of the party, to the portal.