The eviction of eight families from a block of flats on Calderón de la Barca street, in the Salut neighborhood of Badalona (Barcelonès Nord), has generated intense controversy due to the discrepancy between the municipal government and social entities, also supported by ERC. While the City Council describes the judicial operation as an “eviction”, the Sant Roc Som Badalona Platform assures that it involves vulnerable families who have lived there for 20 years.
Despite the discrepancy, the judicial and administrative machinery maintains the eviction order for next Friday the 15th, which has mobilized solidarity entities that warn that these are families with vulnerable people, some of them sick and with minors their position, they will be left without shelter. “They are people with normal profiles, they are not conflictive,” says Carles Sagués, spokesperson for the social entity, some have had a contract for more than 20 years and they do not know of any neighborhood complaints about inconvenience. “They deserve to be cared for by Social Services” they claim, and not to be expelled from the municipal aid circuit.
The building threatens ruin, according to the municipal government, which also points out that “the people who live in it have been creating problems of coexistence and incivility for some time.” The same sources maintain that “we do not whitewash conflictive squatting” and therefore they will not provide housing or temporary housing solutions to people who “dedicate themselves to making life impossible for neighbors.” They assert that “we are not facing a family that has occupied a home due to economic problems”, on the contrary, “we are facing an squatting of an entire building in ruins.”
The City Council insists that the Social Services “will comply with the law” and if it is assessed, they will offer the emergency service for two nights “but when this service runs out they will not have any more help,” they say. The City Council itself advances that on the day of the evacuation, the Mossos d’Esquadra will have the support of the Badalona Urban Guard to support the police action in the operation ordered by the Court of First Instance 4 of Badalona. The City Council also states that it has the information to prove that the building belongs to a natural person and that it is declared in ruins.
Social entities deny the arguments advanced by the municipal government and regret the mayor’s lack of willingness to help people in vulnerable situations. “They should study case by case and guarantee a solution for the future,” says Sagués, so that what happened on Granada Street does not happen again where, he recalls, the neighbors saw each other in the street. At that time, García Albiol took the side of the residents and demanded housing for them. Now, they stress that the PP government has renounced the purchase of the Pep Ventura Hostel, agreed upon by the previous executive, to dedicate the 180 beds to helping vulnerable families.
In this sense, Àlex Montornès, the president of the ERC municipal group in the Badalona City Council, has stated that the families of Calderón de la Barca street “are vulnerable people” who will be on the street from December 15. The Republican also asserts that Albiol “refuses to comply with the agreement reached by the previous municipal government” to be able to acquire the Pep Ventura shelter, with 180 beds, which could help house many of these families in a situation of maximum vulnerability.
