Since the Catalan Housing Agency of the Generalitat began to manage the promotion of social flats of the Plan dels Frares in Arenys de Mar (Maresme), built by the Catalan Soil Institute in 2006 and administered by Adigsa, the degradation, as has happened in other similar promotions, it has been exacerbated, according to the residents, due to the lack of commitment and maintenance of the administration, which has allowed dozens of people to settle in the storage rooms of the garage, many of them young extutelados migrants by the general directorate of Child Care and Adolescence (DGAIA) mentored until the age of 18, after which they are out of the official housing aid circuit.
The Pla dels Frares social blocks have 68 apartments of between 36 and 72 square meters. Nine are managed by the City Council for social reception. The parking lot has 82 spaces and 26 storage rooms, and the building also has two commercial premises “that no one wants to rent.”
The inhumane situation in which young people live in Pla dels Frares, supported by dozens of reports from the Local Police and social services and ignored by the Generalitat, is increased by the lack of security. The squatters live poorly and share three square meter storage rooms in which they cook and cradle all their belongings. “It’s a mousetrap,” the neighbors warn, there is no possibility of escape in the event of a fire, since the emergency exit is blocked. In addition, the place has become a crime hotspot, where fights are frequent.
A few days ago, the technicians of the Catalan Housing Agency responded to the call of the municipal government, to verify how that promotion of social apartments, 17 years after its inauguration, has become a degraded area that generates great insecurity .
The storage rooms are accessed through the parking lot at street level, whose door is always open. “We repaired it and a few hours later it was blocked again,” say City Hall sources. Inside there are dozens of abandoned vehicles parked, most with old license plates, covered in dust and now used as closets, full of clothes and mattresses. The rest of the parking lot is also in a deplorable state, without maintenance or cleaning. “We neighbors no longer keep our cars in our spaces,” they say. They say that the usual thing is that “you find it without wheels or with broken windows.” However, the spaces are occupied by vehicles that do not belong to the residents, but to clever criminals who rent them out, just as they do with the storage rooms.
On the second floor of the parking lot, the stench of urination is unbearable. There you can see two hallways with doors on the side, whose only ventilation is a grille about 15 centimeters wide. The area is free access because the lock on the door has disappeared. The inhabited storage rooms are accessed through a narrow corridor one meter wide, all with numbered metal doors. In one of them you can see a large poster on the wall and various household items. In the hallway, used pans, plates and food remains show that cooking is regularly done there, which entails a serious risk, not only for the occupants of the basements but also for the residents of the 68 upper floors.
Some owner, who, because he has a social rental apartment, is entitled to a parking space and a storage room, chooses to rent both irregularly. “They don’t ask, they charge and they don’t care who gets in there,” point out the most critical residents, who, upon receiving a visit from the technicians of the Catalan Housing Agency, councilors of the City Councils and the Local Police, breathed a sigh of relief. . “Let me go in and look at my car now that the police are here, at night I don’t dare go in,” says a young woman who lives with her mother in one of the protected apartments.
And in the garage the movement of criminals, homeless people and drug addicts is incessant. The area has become a very active drug sales point where fights and even fires often break out. An added risk is that, if a neighbor, fed up with the situation, decides to leave Pla dels Frares, in a few hours the house will be raided. “We can’t even go on vacation because our house is occupied,” they lament.
Now, 17 years later, the Generalitat has committed to remedying the inhumane situation and has filed an eviction lawsuit. The situation, in the hands of justice, tends to continue, unless the Catalan Administration insists and justifies the humanitarian emergency.
Habitatge, according to what has been communicated to the City Council, is awaiting the eviction and they promise that they will then proceed to seal the parking lot and clean up the storage rooms.
