Madrid, Spain, high school counselor describes how eviction and housing insecurity disrupt students’ schooling

A high school counselor in Madrid, Alicia del Río, who also participates in the Sindicato de Inquilinas de Madrid (Madrid Tenants Union), described how housing loss reached her work with one student. She had been meeting with a secondary school student, a capable teenager whose grades had been good, but whose mood and attention had worsened during the course. The two had begun appointments in February to address the situation.

One morning in March, the student did not come to her appointment. Del Río went looking for her and was told she had not come to school all day. A couple of hours later, the student arrived and explained that police had removed her and her family from their home that morning. Her belongings, including her schoolbooks, were in boxes at an aunt’s house. The family had just been evicted, and del Río said she had not known.

Del Río wrote that she felt powerless that day. She said the student’s schooling had been disrupted, that she had been moved to a different institute closer to where a relative had taken in the four people who were evicted, and that her connections to her classroom, neighborhood and friends had been cut. Del Río described the eviction as affecting the student’s right to education, alongside her ability to attend school, feel safe and study. In her account, she asked what she and the student’s teachers could have done had they known sooner, and she wrote that students and families often do not tell schools about evictions out of shame.

Del Río also made broader claims based on her experience. She wrote that between 70 and 80 percent of evictions in Spain involve minors, a figure she attributed to the situation in the country. She said that in the four years she has worked in public centers in Villaverde, Carabanchel and Orcasitas, most cases referred to her involved a housing difficulty affecting the student and family. She described “invisible evictions,” which she defined as forced moves caused by rent increases or non-renewed contracts. She reported that some students commute long distances, including from towns near Toledo, and that housing instability can contribute to absenteeism, sleep problems and disruption of peer and teacher relationships. She also cited figures she gave for child poverty at 30 percent and for students of foreign origin at 13.3 percent of enrollment, and said that migrant families face tighter rental conditions and overcrowding.

Del Río stated that the Madrid Tenants Union has developed a protocol for educational centers. She said it guides school communities, provides materials and resources, and sets out steps for collaboration with tenant unions. She described two intervention goals her article proposed: offering families a space to talk about their situation, and connecting them to collective advisory assemblies of tenant unions, where they can find support and tools to defend their housing. She cited the protecting of vulnerable children as a principle behind these proposals (Proverbs 31:8-9).

Del Río wrote that the protocol was developed in a similar way to one carried out by the Sindicat de Llogateres in Catalonia during the last course, with CGT Ensenyament.

Source: Read the original report (translated from Spanish)