This Friday, the Mossos d'Esquadra carried out the eviction of eight families from a building considered to be in ruins in the La Salut district of Badalona. With the street cordoned off by the municipal police and the Mossos d'Esquadra riot police, the atmosphere was already heating up before nine in the morning, and especially since the families in the neighborhood dropped off their children at school. and many mothers joined the protest. Two hundred neighbors have gathered in solidarity with families who paid rent (some by envelope, others by bank transfer) for apartments in deplorable condition until November. “When they finish here, when they stop by me or anyone in the neighborhood, we are all the same,” Kaoutar Rhim exclaimed, referring to the critical housing situation that La Salut is currently experiencing. The displaced families were returned to the town hall, where they will receive accommodation until Monday. Mayor Xavier García Albiol, who accuses the families of squatters and criminality, has already made it clear that he will not offer them any alternative housing beyond three nights.
This comes amid criticism from some opposition parties and opinion leaders that they are not providing accommodation to the squatters who are due to be evicted next Friday #Badalonahere are the reasons. pic.twitter.com/TkbRDIrGzV
— Xavier García Albiol (@Albiol_XG) December 13, 2023
Among those gathered were also activists from the Badalona Housing Union and opposition councilors in the city council (from Guanyem, the lower house and the ERC, who were booed by the presence of the regional police). Among the cries that were sung, the most common was: “Get out of Albiol, out of our neighborhoods!”, dedicated to the mayor, who this week has supported the eviction in videos published on social networks, assuring that the families are criminals and They create problems of coexistence, something that the neighborhood environment belies. Albiol won the last election, winning in all but two of the city's polling stations.
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The eviction this Friday, which saw tensions, anxiety attacks by several women and a minor police charge, summarizes the socio-economic indicators of the neighborhood: poor families, migrants, substandard housing, expired rents but which continue to be paid informally. .. and a run down building like so many in the area. And a compelling reason to evict them: the building is falling apart, but no administration has an alternative for people who, as they keep saying, have nowhere to go. The social services are even suggesting that they return to Morocco, as explained on Monday by the couple Mohamed Bakali and his wife Lamyna, who raised four children in the neighborhood and had never asked the administration for help.
DVD1191 151223 Clearance of the block on Calderón de la Barca street in Badalona. Photo: Albert GarciaAlbert Garcia
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After the evacuation was carried out, to which the Generalitat firefighters were also called, the families were directed to the town hall, but out of sight of the gathering: from the wide police cordon they were forced to go on the opposite side, indicating the concentration . From the platform Sant Roc Som Badalona, which warned about this case, Carles Sagués regretted the result: “This eviction is a failure of society that allows children and sick people to be thrown out of their homes without any alternative.” [en el edificio viven varias personas con enfermedades o bajas laborales por problemas graves de salud]“. “From Monday no one knows where they can live. And now it's very serious that a mayor can lie, he's a vote-counting machine and he has to do the math and he'll do it well.” The building was boarded up without neighbors being able to remove the furniture and store it in a storage room , as is the case in other cases.
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