The rent, a collective horror story

BarcelonaThree women took over the Espai Texas this Monday afternoon to weave a serene and thrilling narrative that kept the seats—packed to capacity—hooked on every word. Writer Llucia Ramis, notary Camino Quiroga, and the vice president of Amat Immobiliaris, Joana Amat, told a story of fear, uncertainty, and hope.

From different points of view, they discussed where the problems in the rental market lie. With Maricarmen's eviction still resonating, and the election call fresh out of the oven, this Monday Quiroga asserted that the rental issue is "absolutely terrible" from a human perspective—even while shielding it behind the law of supply and demand—and Amat stated that "landlords are very distressed" at the possibility of not being able to recover their apartment once rented.

Ramis also spoke of distress, but, in her case, the kind she experienced firsthand due to rising monthly rents, while salaries do not keep pace. "You tell yourself: 'And what will become of me?'", because "when you lose your home, you don't just lose your home, but also your entire surroundings", she recalled.

Beyond the price

While rental prices in Barcelona have seen five consecutive quarters of growth, Quiroga and Amat have argued that "the mentality of the majority" of landlords, nowadays, is to keep a responsible tenant over the price. "It doesn't matter if they don't pay the full market price, as long as the person who is there is quiet and doesn't throw parties every day... This is the mentality that most people still have," she states.

The narrative of all three –contrasting from an economic point of view– has sought the audience's empathy by appealing to the same emotions. Fear and uncertainty, at the forefront, followed by the recognition of the other's predicament: "They are perceptions," Ramis remarked.

The dialogue table returns

The discussion ended with calls for a "dialogue table" that recalled past times. Amat has opted to bring together landlords, tenants, institutions, and professionals, always within the framework of legal certainty.

However, despite the shared emotions and the good tone, Quiroga closed the conversation by claiming that "the landlord earns their money as they can, and one way is also to rent," on the same day that the unions CCOO and UGT have yielded to the Tenants' Union and have assured that they will call a general strike before the November 29 elections.

Housing and Cinema Cycle

This has been the first session of the ARTEC cinema and debate series on housing, planned by the Barcelona Technical Architecture Association (Cateb) until November 30th at Espai Texas. The dialogues are followed by a film that has the search for and construction of a home as its backdrop, and they are moderated by journalists from the newspaper ARA.

Among others, the economist and president of the Hàbitat3 Foundation, Carme Trilla; the general director of Som Habitatge, Anna Puigdevall, and the digital communicator Pol Casellas will take the floor.