Three women, four minors and a man with a physical disability will be left on the streets starting Tuesday, if there are no unexpected developments in the last hours. This Monday the help that the City Council offered them ends after they were evicted from the building where they lived, three weeks ago, on Calderón de la Barca street in the La Salut neighborhood.
The women and children had been temporarily housed in a boarding house and the man in the municipal reception center of Can Bufí Vell, without being able to find an alternative accommodation for the moment. They denounce that the situation they are experiencing is “limiting”, since to the “drama” of the eviction is added that one of the women suffers from breast cancer and another has a 90% visual disability.
The council understands that the temporary accommodation of these people, financed with municipal resources, cannot be extended any longer. In a brief statement issued this Monday, the municipal government recalls that those affected knew that they had to leave the building “for two years” because it was in poor condition.
In addition, the City Council accuses them of living in “illegally occupied” apartments and says that the help that has been offered so far to eight of the affected people – the eviction left another eight people on the street who have not received any help – was exceptional” because they were families with a situation of “greater need.”
This aid ends this Monday and on Tuesday they will have to leave the pension before 11 a.m., according to those affected. Of the three women, there is only one who has a 90% visual disability, while the other two have minors in their care. “Tomorrow there will be children who when they return from school will have nowhere to go,” denounces the Sant Roc Som Badalona platform.
One of the women is divorced with two girls, ages 13 and 17. His name is Souad and he explains that he does not have a job and that it is impossible for him to get a rental contract in his current situation: “We have nowhere to sleep tomorrow and my children study here. We don’t want to leave the city and we don’t have any other family.”
The other woman, Bakali, has two daughters, ages 6 and 13, as well as two other sons, of legal age and who are living with friends because municipal aid only affected minors. Her husband is in the same situation. She has also suffered from breast cancer for more than a year. “We want you to help us look for a rental apartment. We don’t want anything for free,” she exclaims.
Along these lines, the Sant Roc Som Badalona platform has also claimed support, which supports those affected from the first moment. This Monday they met for the umpteenth time to try to find a temporary solution, which did not arrive. “We hope for a reaction, that there is a little sanity on the part of the City Council,” claims the entity’s spokesperson, Carles Sagués.
Social movements see it as “unacceptable” and “incomprehensible” that the administration does nothing for these families. “It is no longer a question of ideology. It is being a person or not being one,” said Sagués. “They have the ability to pick up the phone and extend their stay and they don’t do it,” he laments.
Sagués denounces the way in which the PP government in Badalona treats poverty and recalls that without the support of the administrations it will be “impossible” for these people to qualify for a rental contract and, consequently, the set of aid provided by the own administration.
Apart from the most extreme cases of women, minors and men with physical disabilities, the eviction on Calderón Street left eight more people on the street, these are the rest of the men who lived in the building in rubble and who did not have opted for the “exceptional” help offered by the City Council.
There are three – a father and two sons – from the same family, that of Bakali. A fourth man who lives alone managed to rent a room in an apartment supervised by the Roca i Pi Foundation, while the other four survive as best they can between pensions – on the days they can pay – or sharing the night inside the taxi of one of them. the affected.
