The story behind Casa Orsola’s new owners

In early 2025, the residents of Casa Orsola, the high-profile residential building in the Eixample district of Barcelona, received some long-awaited good news: the anticipated eviction of one of the residents scheduled for January 31 had been postponed after a long battle led by the Catalan Tenants’ Union.

In February, after weeks of social mobilizations and a massive protest, it was announced that the remaining residents would be able to stay in their homes.

As it turned out, the Barcelona City Council and its mayor, Jaume Collboni, had teamed up with the Catalan non-profit organization Hàbitat3 to buy the yellow housing block and convert it into social and affordable housing for €9.2 million.

Extraordinary and pioneering operation

At the time of the announcement, Collboni described the deal, which has yet to be formalized, as "an innovative, extraordinary, and pioneering operation.”

Although the details of the deal are still being worked out, it’s rumored that the city will have a slightly smaller ownership stake than Hàbitat3.

According to the social entity’s director for communication and strategic alliances, Natalia Martínez, the deal has one clear objective: “To prevent home loss and to increase social and affordable housing,” she says.

What is Hàbitat 3?

The organization was founded in 2014 by the board of the Third Sector, a confederation of over 3,000 social organizations in Catalonia, with two objectives.

One was to be “an organization that could provide and manage housing for other social organizations that really needed housing badly to be able to carry out their inclusion projects,” explains Martínez.

The other goal was to be a “tool and to work with public administrations to increase the available housing for public housing programs.”

This was particularly necessary in the aftermath of the mortgage crisis, because there “was a really big need for emergency housing, and the public stock couldn’t cope” with the demand, according to the director.

How does Hàbitat3 work?

Hàbitat3 works primarily with managing housing in different parts of Catalonia, working with 16 city councils across the territory, including Tarragona, Reus, Amposta, and Barcelona, the last of which is the longest-standing partner of the non-profit.

“We acquire housing through leases, particularly private owners, and we currently rent over 500 units at moderate prices from private owners,” says Martínez.

Hàbitat3 also renovates buildings and apartments, purchases homes, and has recently begun developing.

Martínez says that their various projects and activities are funded differently.

Part of their funding comes from the rent they collect from their tenants. But as the rents are differentiated according to the tenants’ income, it’s often not enough to cover their costs, so the Catalan or city authorities make up the remainder.

“We also get loans to purchase housing mostly from the Catalan Institute of Finance,” she says, before adding that they also take out loans from private banks or investors, as well as get both monetary and material donations, depending on the project.

City Council refers tenants

The tenants that Hàbitat3 usually works with, are “a family or a person who has gone through foreclosure,” coming from an emergency board system or by referral from social services.

Some are referred directly by the local council, while others come from the other 50 social organizations which Hàbitat3 works with.

After securing a home for their tenants, Hàbitat3 also offers support programs to “prevent this revolving door that sometimes happens when people lose their home,” explains Martínez. “There’s this whole package of providing housing, providing the contract, and supporting the contract.”

 What will happen to the tenants in Casa Orsola?

One question that has been on the minds of many since the news of the purchase of Casa Orsola broke is, what will the future look like for the tenants living in the building, and what will happen to the now-empty apartments?

According to Martínez, the tenants who currently have leases will remain in their homes, while “the idea” with the empty apartments is that they will become part of either the public housing stock or the social housing stock, reserved for vulnerable people, although she admits that it still “needs to be worked out.”

“Not a one-time thing”

While both the Barcelona City Council and Hàbitat3 celebrate the purchase of Casa Orsola as a victory for tenants, others have also raised the question why these residents were helped when many others are also in need.    

“We welcome this debate, because we understand that it’s controversial,” says Martínez.  

She points out that while the purchase of Casa Orsola is one of their more “high profile” projects, they are working on several projects at the same time, with “one key component which are these collaborations and alliances between the public and the social sector.”

Currently, Hàbitat 3 is renovating a building that houses 40 families in the Barcelona neighborhood of Horta to make it more energy-friendly.

“What we are doing is not just a one-time thing,” she says. “Sometimes you need to do something bold which has a big response in the media to change the narrative and send a message that we can all do things differently.”

How the conflict began

Casa Orsola is located on the corner of Consell de Cent and Carrer Calàbria in the Eixample district of Barcelona and has become an example of the Catalan capital’s housing problems and gentrification debate after the investment fund Lioness Inversiones bought the block for €5.4 million in 2020 with plans to turn it into short-term rents, which tend to be much more profitable than long-term rentals.

Shortly after the purchase, the company informed residents - some of whom had lived there for decades - that their leases would not be renewed.

To learn more about Casa Orsola, check out the latest episode of our podcast Filling the Sink.