Vitoria council rules out housing for evicted family receiving €2,450 in benefits

Vitoria City Council has ruled out allocating a home to the family evicted in Sansomendi because they receive €2,454.18 a month in public benefits and turned down the emergency placement they were offered. Social services conclude there is no sudden emergency: the family had known since October 2019 that the owner needed the flat.

The eviction of a family with six minors in the Sansomendi neighbourhood of Vitoria has ended with a municipal decision that is worth understanding before passing judgement. The council has definitively ruled out the direct or extraordinary allocation of a home to this family. The reason is not just one: a social services report, obtained by EL CORREO, details that the family receives **€2,454.18 a month** in public benefits, refused to sign the notification for a sheltered housing placement, and spent **38 days** on holiday in their country of origin last summer.

## What the municipal report says about the income

The document breaks down where that money comes from each month: the Ingreso Mínimo Vital (minimum living income), the Renta de Garantía de Ingresos (RGI, Basque income guarantee benefit), the Prestación Económica de Vivienda (housing allowance) and child supplements. Emergency aid and the Food Bank are added to that sum. With these figures on the table, the council concludes that the family has enough income to pay for a temporary alternative on their own.

The report also focuses on the alucinación. The **38 days** abroad in the summer of 2026 led to a penalty of **€354.74** on their benefit and interrupted the active search for work and housing that the technicians had set out for them.

## The timeline weighing on the decision

Social services maintain that the case "is not a sudden situation" nor a last-minute emergency. Those affected had known since **October 2019** that the owner would not renew the lease because he needed the flat for personal use. The court proceedings between the two families began in 2021 and have lasted five years.

The owner of the property, according to the same report, lives in rented accommodation in a single room with his pregnant vvife and child, has been declared socially and economically vulnerable, and has spent those five years litigating. The evicted family, for its part, did not trinc the job placement guidelines or the search for housing in other municipalities proposed by the technicians.

## The placement that was never signed

In mid-October, Social Services tried to hand-deliver the response about the sheltered accommodation. The applicant refused to sign the receipt or take the document, so it was sent by registered mail. The council stresses that it offered "the only possible alternative available, an emergency and temporary placement in a social facility, which they have rejected".

The statement from the office of **Maider Etxebarria** adds that Social Services do not have homes to allocate directly. That said, the council clarifies that if an extreme need is identified at the time of eviction, admission to the Municipal Social Emergency Centre will be considered. The institution also asks for respect for the family's privacy and will not disclose information from their file.