[VO] For seven years, two and a half thousand people have lived together
in an abandoned Caracas skyscraper that they moved in to without permission.
[VO] They're now celebrating something that will change their lives completely.
[VO] For tonight, they'll forget all about noise abatement rules and, at least in this part of the city, no one will sleep.
OCCUPY TOWER
[VO] Monica and Ju�n live on the 16th floor of the Tower of David.
[VO] One benefit of their corner suite is a spectacular view of Caracas,
on a less positive note, they have to go up and down all those floors by foot,
there are no working lifts in this skyscraper.
[Monica De Torres] My husband's a moto taxi driver.
[Monica] If he can, he gives us a ride to the 10th floor.
[Monica] If not, we walk 16 floors down,
I take them to school, then walk back up again.
[VO] Construction on this tower block began in the 1990s.
[VO] The principal investor was a Billionaire called David Brillembourg,
the building was named after him.
[VO] The plans were ambitious: 45 floors, a 10 layered parking ramp, even a helipad.
[VO] But Brillembourg died unexpectedly in 1993 and then there was a severe financial crisis.
[VO] Construction stopped and the unfinished tower was put up for sale
but no buyers came forward.
[VO] In 2007 a new leaf was turned in the tower's story
homeless people from the city moved in and occupied the building.
[Monica] We'd bring water here in containers, by hand.
[Monica] Then a pulley was installed,
so we women would go down, fill the bottles,
tie them to the rope,
and the men pulled them up.
[Andrea Osorio] Our grandmother helped us to move here.
[Andrea] We used to live near a graveyard.
[Andrea] Then we had a problem.
[Andrea] We rented a house, but the landlord sold it and told us to leave.
[Guadalupe Medina] My house in the country fell down seven years ago.
[Guadalupe] Now it's not even a quarter of what it was like,
when we had to poo in a black plastic bag,
[Guadalupe] I washed using a bin bag, too, pouring water over me.
[Guadalupe] That was how we lived at first, until we built a loo in the back.
[VO] Tower of David residents use one word more often than any other,
'struggle',
and these conditions really are a cross to bear, every day.
[Ingrid Rodriguez, Co-operative Deputy Head] I was among the first to come here.
[Ingrid] I used to live with my mother-in-law,
and came here with my kids.
[Ingrid] When you have a family,
you have to be able to provide certain conditions.
[Ingrid] There were no such conditions there.
[Ingrid] We were cramped and the kids fought a lot.
[Ingrid] This is my daughter.
[Ingrid] She was eight days old when I came here, now she's seven.
[Ingrid] I opened the door with her in my arms.
[VO] The Tower of David is a mini state within a state.
[VO] The gates are guarded and members of the public just can't walk in uninvited!
[VO] Each family chooses a delegate to be their representative.
[VO] The delegates on each floor choose a coordinator
and at the top of the pyramid is a president
who is elected at a general meeting.
[Elvys Merclan, Co-operative Head]
[Elvys] When we started, we basically stole the electricity.
[Elvys] Then we got ourselves organised.
[Elvys] For more than five years now, we've been paying for our electricity.
[Elvys] Some people didn't want to behave,
so we spoke to them, tried to explain things.
[Elvys] We didn't want people saying there were tramps and gangsters here,
or that we didn't move in, we just took over the place, and so on.
[Elvys] Some people left of their own accord,
as they knew they'd be evicted
at the residents' meeting anyway.
[VO] The housing cooperative is now officially registered.
[VO] Every family contributes 200 bol�vars a month,
that's about 30 dollars, to a collective fund.
[VO] That's enough to pay for electricity and water.
[VO] Once a week, the Tower of David's residents work together to clear away all the rubbish.
[Woman] You need a longer stick!
[Man] It doesn't matter if it's long or short!
[Woman] No, you need a longer stick!
[Woman] Size doesn't matter!
[Man] A sword can be long or short...
you just need to know how to use it!
[Man] One, two, stick it in!
[VO] With a population of more than four million, the crime rate in Caracas is high.
[VO] That's why many people prefer to stay away from the streets at night.
[Monica] I've always worried about the kids.
[Monica] There were cases...
when people fell out of windows,
or wandered around drunk.
[Monica] Once, a four-year-old girl fell from the 25th floor.
[Monica] Everyone was very worried,
and I got even more scared for the kids,
because large pieces of glass would fall.
[Monica] When it rained the glass would crack.
[Monica] There were lots of leaks.
[Monica] When we moved in, there was a hole in this part.
[Monica] We had to be careful.
[Juan Manuel Torres Rios, Monica's Husband] When we first came here, as you say...
there were a lot of people,
who didn't really need a place to live.
[Juan] Some were hiding from the government.
[Juan] Others were hiding their identity.
[Juan] But as for me, I never had any problems,
[Juan] I didn't have to resort to force.
[Juan] How should I put it...
[Juan] I've never had reason to use physical force to protect my family.
[VO] The building achieved fame, or perhaps, infamy,
soon after the American series 'Homeland' was aired.
[VO] In one episode, called, 'The Tower of David',
an American marine is kidnapped by a gang of Venezuelan criminals and their accomplices who lived in the skyscraper.
[VO] Fact and fiction became blurred,
and the tower's residents had to live with the reputation that came from the way they were portrayed in that drama.
[VO] To them it was deeply offensive.
[TV] Where am I?
[TV] In Caracas...
[TV] In your new home!
[TV] Is that him?
[TV] Yeah, that's him!
[Andrea] There was a lot of discrimination.
[Andrea] You'd go out of the door, and they'd say, 'There's a rat who lives in that closet!
[Andrea] 'They're all gangsters, they throw orgies...'
[Andrea] It was scary to go outside.
[Andrea] Now it's not so obvious, but for a time there was discrimination.
[Andrea] I remember when I was looking for a job,
when I said I lived here, they wouldn't hire me!
[Andrea] When we moved to the Tower of David,
first we lived with my grandmother.
[Andrea] For about a year, or a year and a half,
while we were settling down.
[Andrea] There was nothing here but empty space.
[Andrea] This area...
...from here to here belonged to Grandma,
and we built these two rooms.
[Andrea] And that belonged to no one, so it was given to us.
[Andrea] And this is my grandfather...
...or rather, what's left of him.
[Andrea] He died, and we kept him as we had no money to bury him.
[VO] Monica and Ju�n have been together for ten years
but only now getting married officially,
in a church established inside the Tower of David
and on the eve of a major life change.
[Monica] We've known each other since we were kids.
[Monica] At first I couldn't stand him, and then he became my best friend.
[Monica] I was 13 when we met.
[Monica] It was the usual story:
we fell in love with each other.
[Monica] Well, I think it was me who fell in love.
[Monica] He was a real hooligan!
[Juan] It's an interesting and unusual story.
[Juan] I'll give you the short version.
[Juan] When we met, I pushed her friend into a puddle.
[Juan] I knew her friend.
[Juan] That day, it was raining on my block.
[Juan] And I pushed her friend in the puddle,
because here in Venezuela, we play in the water when it rains.
[Juan] She said to her friend I was a brute,
so I pushed her in too.
[Juan] I think that was what prompted us.
[Juan] Couples don't usually meet like that.
[Juan] But I knew it for sure,
when I had a health problem...
...and she spent all that time with me in the hospital.
[Juan] I think that was when she won me over completely.
[Monica] We're on the seventh floor!
[Monica] Nine to go!
[Monica] Before we found the way of the Lord,
I felt I couldn't stand it anymore,
because, like many Venezuelan men,
my husband was a womaniser.
[Monica] I didn't feel he appreciated me or our kids.
[Monica] Since I was young I dreamt about my wedding day...
[Monica] It would be so beautiful!
[Monica] I've never experienced anything like this
in the 10 years we've been together.
[Monica] I found God and then he started appreciating his family!
[Girl] We're here! Victory!
[VO] Andrea is 19 and has only just finished school.
[VO] Like many Venezuelan girls, she found a husband at a very young age and gave birth almost at once.
[VO] Women like her are not put off by hard living conditions or lack of work, they are willing to tolerate it.
[Andrea] I was in my fifth year at college,
and as I lived here...
[Andrea] I had a think and then decided, 'I know...
[Andrea] 'I'll write my project on discrimination against the Tower of David!'
[Andrea] I searched the Internet,
which led me to the state organisation, FOGADE.
[Andrea] Its coordinators helped me.
[Andrea] I got 19 out of 20 due to a small mistake.
[Andrea] It was probably because I lacked time,
as I only started working on my project at the last moment.
[Andrea] Some people apologised for how they had treated me.
[Andrea] It was overwhelming.
[Andrea] I had a lot of mixed feelings,
as I had never experienced that before.
[Andrea] But everything ended just the way I wanted.
[Andrea] For me, my grandma's the soul of this tower,
as she's always here, helping everyone and smiling.
[Andrea] So she's the soul of the tower,
and that's not just because she's my grandmother.
[Ivis] Do you like it? Yes?
[Ivis] Let's try it on...
[Ivis] This goes here...
[Ivis] Yes, that's good.
[Ivis] Wear them here...
[Ivis] These straps tie up...
...here!
[Ivis Del Carmen Medina Rodriguez]
[Ivis] I'm very emotional as we've lived here so many years,
and now so many have moved out,
we're practically the only ones left.
[Ivis] I don't know where I'll go.
[Ivis] We haven't been told, we're still waiting,
as they're moving people from the upper floors first.
[Andrea] Once I dreamt we were moved from the tower and given new flats.
[Andrea] I saw these flats in my dream.
[Andrea] It was beautiful.
[Andrea] I was given the key, the flat, everything.
[Andrea] I saw the keys and the flat,
I saw my husband at home...
my grandma and mum in their own flats,
saw several neighbours, and everyone was extremely happy.
[VO] There are just a few days to go before the tower resettlement programme begins.
[VO] The government committee checks the list of remaining residents,
any names unaccounted for will trigger a scandal
and so the officials aren not happy to see a camera.
[Man] No filming... Please!
[Neighbour] No one home. Sara, call the neighbour, ask her to watch the flat.
[VO] Ingrid discovers the first problem,
one family is about to move to another city
but suddenly learn that the flats allocated to them by the government have been taken over by other people.
[Neighbour] In Zamora, there are five occupied flats,
But listen, I won't fight for this flat,
because when I die, I won't be able to take anything with me.
[Neighbour] Here, no one has any privileges.
[Neighbour] Iolanda has no privileges!
[Neighbour] No one does!
[Neighbour] I'm one of the people who bought everything here.
[Neighbour] I bought it all!
[Neighbour] Everything we spent here was to live like decent people!
[VO] For many of the tower's residents, moving to a new flat is a risk.
[VO] Here in Caracas, everything is nearby: home and work are close together.
[VO] But the new place though is unknown territory.
[VO] This meeting is a final attempt to persuade the last few who don't want to leave the city.
[Ivis] The purpose of yesterday's meeting,
was to convince the women that, getting a new flat isn't easy now.
[Ivis] People live in barracks after a flood and need a place.
[Ivis] They have a great chance, but don't care and won't use it!
[Guadalupe] If I am given a new flat, I will leave.
[Guadalupe] I like it here...
but if they send me elsewhere, I'll have to move.
[Guadalupe] I won't fight. I won't say, 'No Mr. President'...
[Guadalupe] You have to leave me in Caracas because you have to leave me in Caracas!'
[Ingrid] Come here!
[Ingrid] It's because you're leaving!
[Janeth Castillo] Thank God,
tomorrow I'm moving to Lomas de Guadalupe.
[Janeth] I cried last night because I felt nostalgic,
as I spent so many years here with my family,
and now we have to move somewhere else.
[Janeth] But it's all for the best!
[Ingrid] I ask God to give them a place to live, too.
[Ingrid] I have kids too, and I'm sure they deserve these flats.
[Ingrid] There's a revolution in Venezuela,
and we have a government that takes care of those in greatest need.
[Ingrid] I know they'll get help with a place to live.
[Ingrid] And as for the fact we were invaders...
[Ingrid] Well, that's true, but we fought for this space.
[Janeth] Where I used to live,
each time I had to walk up to the 13th floor,
on a staircase with no railings.
[Janeth] It was dangerous...
because you could trip and fall.
[Janeth] But here it's safer.
[Janeth] I've been given a council flat.
[Janeth] I can't sell it...
[Janeth] But, for example, if I move out or am unable to live here,
my daughter or my kids could live here.
[Janeth] We won't have to pay rent the first year.
[Janeth] Starting from the second year, we'll have to pay.
[VO] Yesterday evening, Monica and Ju�n, along with the other remaining residents,
learned that their turn had finally come.
[VO] This is their last ever morning in the Tower of David,
they're overwhelmed by conflicting emotions.
[Monica] I feel both happy and sad as there are so many memories...
[Monica] ...Rachie, don't!
[Monica] There are so many memories here!
[Monica] My girl was two months old, my son was two years old,
and now they're big.
[Monica] I have a lot of memories of this place,
the 16th floor, where I spent seven years of my life.
[Monica] So of course I feel happy,
because at least I won't have to walk up 16 floors,
or, if there's no water, to carry it in containers.
[Monica] But at the same time, I'm sad...
[Andrea] I'd like twins, a boy and a girl.
[Andrea] There is a possibility,
even the doctor said so.
[Andrea] Of course we'll have to tell them where we come from,
as it's part of our life.
[Andrea] There's no shame in living in the Tower of David.
[Andrea] I'm proud of living here, it's taught me a lot.
IN JULY 2015, THE LAST REMAINING RESIDENTS LEFT THE TOWER OF DAVID.