Elsa Gabriela Garcia he found the floor bricked up when he returned from the hospital. Had come to pay 200 euros per month for a room at home, located in the neighborhood of Meridian City, the one that declares less income in Barcelona. She was able to afford the room until sickness incapacitated her. Several operations reduced her mobility and she had to stop caring for the elderly, which is why she came from Honduras in 2006, without ever being able to return to see her six grandchildren and three of her children. One of them is threatened by gang members, who demand the so-called war tax. In 2019, the mother was admitted to the hospital for one more operation. At that time, the difficulties to service the mortgage plagued the homeowner. However, Elsa Gabriela did not expect that, two months later and with a fresh kidney transplant, she would run into the door sealed by a metal plate.
“The lady gave the house to Santander bank because she did not know what had happened to me,” says the woman, who requires a dialysis machine that was trapped in the house: “What worried me the most they were the machine and the treatment, but there were also my belongings, my documentation … “. The neighbors warned her three days later that some robbers were trying to tear off the plate from the entrance: “I came and told them that the apartment was mine. It was not, but I had everything inside. They told me I should give them almost 2.000 euros because it had been difficult for them to open it. I replied that if they did not leave, I would call the police. They came three days to stone my window. “
Since the collision, Elsa Gabriela squats the home with her daughter, a student. There he remains with the machine he must connect to every night. He succeeded in having the first eviction attempt suspended, at the end of October, and asks for a rent adapted to the minimum rent of 600 euros that you have been receiving for a year. He assures that he has not received an offer.
Its problems do not differ from those that abound in Ciutat Meridiana. A hundred people gathered on Tuesday to prevent a family with four minors from being expelled from a Bankia home, despite a recent decree by the Generalitat intends to postpone evictions if an entity with more than 15 properties does not prove that it has offered a lease according to the earnings of the defendants. “Very few social rents are achieved,” he warns Filiberto Bravo, president of the Neighborhood Association, which quantifies between 250 and 300 squatted homes in the neighborhood.
Catalan legislation establishes that banks and investment funds dispense low-price leases to families at risk of exclusion and with a precarious economy. The Government expanded the hypotheses 11 months ago to regularize with the same rents those who illegally squat a flat since before July 2019 and the social services endorse that they are in need. “We are aware of some offers, but it is one of the assumptions of the law that is most violated,” he assures Josep Babot, spokesperson for the Platform for People Affected by the Mortgage (PAH) in Barcelona.
Records without charging
Penalties of up to 90.000 euros for not providing social rents. However, sanctioning processes are rather scarce and the administrations consulted have not yet fined.
The Barcelona’s town hall reports eight files opened between 2019 and 2020. It has set the amount of the reprimand at four but the charge has not been made, according to September data. The Consistory does not clarify how many affordable leases it is aware that large property owners have granted this year. Sabadell processed seven fines in September after collecting 147 reduced rent proposals in 2020, of which 17 were formalized. Terrace It has required it to be offered in 198 cases, knows 70 draft contracts and only one has been signed. Badalona Y L’Hospitalet do not carry out punishments, while Housing Agency The Generalitat is in charge of 10 sanctioning procedures, none closed. The Government quantifies 3,462 compulsory social rental offers between February 2019 and August 2020.
The PAH urges Barcelona and the large Catalan towns to speed up the imposition of fines. “It is the fastest way to stop evictions,” says Babot. The organization believes that half of the 443 eviction orders registered in the capital between September and mid-October were for households eligible for medical leases, like the one Elsa Gabriela claims: “I don’t want to be squatting. I want to pay as a person. vulnerable that I am and be calm. Sometimes one does not sleep or eat, thinking about whether they will take me off the floor. “
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