Up to 12 Brimo vans from the Mossos d’Esquadra have come this Friday to carry out the eviction of two lifelong residents of the Barceloneta neighborhood. Pitote and Conxi have, as union members have confirmed to La Vanguardia, more than 70 years in the neighborhood and about 40 in the apartment. Now, the owner – who bought the property in 2016 below the market price as there were tenants – alleges that he needs the home for his children and a judge has processed the launch process.
The Sindicat d’Habitatge del Raval and the Casc Antic have organized a protest that began at 9:00 a.m. this Friday, and according to reports from Betevé, they have mobilized a hundred people. The organizations demand that both of them be able to stay in the apartment since they have nowhere to go.
According to sources, Jesús (nicknamed Pitote) and Conxi, both 72 years old, have never failed to pay the rent, and have even paid the rent for this month of May. It so happens that she suffers from a 75% disability. Even so, having already stopped the eviction – which was scheduled for April – the order has continued in motion and today the date has arrived. At around 11:00 a.m., Brimo agents cordoned off the area to carry out the launch.
The unions believe that all these evictions – it should be noted that a few days ago 4 in a row were carried out – are part of a plan hatched to offer the apartments as touristic ones in the high season. Thus, they affirm that expelling their neighbors “is the way in which Barcelona prepares for the Copa América.”
Today an eviction attempt was also carried out on Sant Pere Mitjà street which, apparently, has been stopped thanks to the collaboration of the housing entities. All this in the same week in which 37 people have been evicted from a building in the Raval, and it seems that Mayor Collboni’s Endreça plan is going to create a tailwind in the field of housing.