Woman and her three children evicted in Barcelona despite protests

The Catalan police have evicted a mother and her three minor children who were living in an occupied flat in Parallel avenue, Barcelona.

Riot officers and emergency services were involved in the operation, facing around 15 housing activists who were inside the building aiming to stop the eviction.

The police removed each of the activists one by one, dragging them out of the bloc until they were able to reach the flat and evict the woman.

According to the tenants' association Sindicat de Llogateres del Poble-sec, it was the third time the family had faced a police attempt to remove them from home—one on March 8 and a second one on April 25, which were both halted.

Chanaz, the woman who was evicted, moved in in 2019, and since then, she has offered to pay rent multiple times and asked for social rent, which has not been replied to yet by the property owner.

The real estate company called Divarian, part of the investment firm Cerberus, is the enterprise behind this flat.

Housing activists consider Cerberus a vulture fund with several other properties in the Catalan capital and say the family in Parallel avenue has no alternative place to live.

The tenant has been looking for different opportunities to rent, but even though she works, Chanaz cannot afford rent prices in Barcelona, and the owner has even offered to pay her money for her to leave the apartment.

"Owners do not want to make any deal, they just want the flat," Chanaz said to media outlets after being evicted.

Aside from Mossos d'Esquadra police, at the site, there was an emergency services unit, the jury in charge of the judicial process, and a team from Barcelona's city council housing unit to mediate.

"This eviction is a flagrant violation of the social rent law," Sergi Barrios, from the Poble-Sec neighborhood syndicate, said to the Catalan News Agency (ACN), referring to the lack of social services around at the moment of the expulsion.

After the process, Chanaz went to the neighborhood's social services to see her options. However, no alternative has been proposed, and even though she has been registered at the emergency housing unit since February, the process of getting a housing unit can take from three months to up to two years.

"The problem this city has is that there are no flats for residents, only for tourists," Chanaz said.

She works four hours a day as part of the cleaning team at a school and also receives a subsidy. Her children go to school in the neighborhood, which is why she does not consider leaving the city.

"I had the faith and the desire that I would get the flat, as I have handed all the required documents to rent it, but the owners have not accepted them as they will earn more money with tourists," Chanaz said before explaining that she "is in shock, worried," and has plenty of questions.

Second eviction in Poble Sec

A second eviction was planned for Wednesday in the neighborhood but was postponed for June 8. In this case, the tenants are a vulnerable family with a child.

In this case, the family moved into the flat paying, renting a room to someone who said everything was fine, but later the family received the eviction order.

The family has also requested up to three times a social rent, but the owner, Living Center, a CaixaBank bank affiliate, has not yet replied.

Filling the Sink podcasts on housing

In the past few years, housing has become one of the biggest concerns among Barcelona residents, especially given the hikes in rents.

Casa Orsola in Barcelona's Eixample neighborhood has become a symbol of the city's struggle with gentrification, as long-term renters find themselves priced out of their homes. Have a listen to our Filling the Sink podcast on the issue, published in November 2022.

Filling the Sink also published a podcast on the soaring rents and the increasing number of evictions in June 2021.