Skip to main content
Evicting the Valparaiso settlements would disgrace Chile
The evictions of the informal settlements could make 4,000 families homeless. The ‘anti-usurpation law’ being used is one of the worst setbacks to Chile’s housing policy since Pinochet, writes MIGUEL LAWNER
A view of the Valparaiso area [Roman Bonnefoy / Creative Commons]

IT HAS been more than five years since the hills of San Antonio began to be populated, giving rise, in short, to what is today the largest land seizure in Chile. It is estimated that 4,000 families have settled in this area over the last five years.

In August 2023 the Court of Appeals of Valparaiso (Chile) ordered the eviction of 254 hectares of the Bellavista Sector. A final ruling this month by the Supreme Court has confirmed the eviction of all the families and set a six-month deadline to carry it out. 

The authorities in the area, the Carabineros (federal police), have stated that it is impossible to carry out the eviction. We are not living in the times of the military dictatorship, which viciously and violently evicted a thousand families from the Villa San Luis de Las Condes housing estate, who had acquired their flats by all the regulations available at the time.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Ricardo
Obituary / 30 June 2026
30 June 2026

19.01.1930-23.04.2026

Kate Clark pays tribute to Ricardo, whose life spanned the hopes of Allende’s Chile, the horrors of military dictatorship and decades of campaigning for justice in exile

National Nurses United RN members take part in an Anti-ICE vigil at Sutter CPMC Van Ness Campus Hospital in San Francisco, January 28, 2026. Photo: Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP
Features / 30 January 2026
30 January 2026

The fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a registered nurse and union member, has sparked nationwide protests and renewed calls from National Nurses United to dismantle Ice and related agencies, says MARK GRUENBERG

IRON FIST: Mass exodus of Latin American migrants cross from Chile at the Santa Rosa border point in Tacna, Peru on Monday in a panic reaction at Jose Antonio Kast’s threats of expulsion
Politics / 3 December 2025
3 December 2025

Far-right forces are rising across Latin America and the Caribbean, armed with a common agenda of anti-communism, the culture war, and neoliberal economics, writes VIJAY PRASHAD