Albiol asks the Generalitat for permission to evict the settlement from the C-31 bridge
This point is under the jurisdiction of the Catalan administration, as it lies beneath a highway.
BarcelonaThe Badalona City Council has requested permission from the Catalan government to evict the settlement located under the C-31 bridge. This is where they settled. Dozens of people after the eviction from the former B9 InstituteA few meters away. According to the City Council, there are no longer any former residents of the B9 under the highway bridge, as they have all been relocated, but other homeless people remain. The affected land belongs to the highway company and, therefore, the Generalitat (Catalan government) is the owner. The City Council assures that the relocation of the people from the B9 was completed on Wednesday and that they will now take action to eliminate this settlement. The council is citing the civic ordinance that expressly prohibits "camping without municipal authorization." The camping ban was also the reason given by the City Council in the first hours after the eviction in mid-December, when some occupants of the B9 tried to settle in the square directly in front of the old high school. Once they were evicted from there, they ended up settling under the C-31 highway. The City Council estimates that there are currently about twenty people under the bridge and that social services are monitoring the situation. The city council maintains that some of these people have arrived from other cities. They believe there has been a "pull factor" effect, after this location became the central hub for social services aid to the homeless following the B9 case.
Neighborhood protests
The city council, led by the conservative mayor Xavier García Albiol, is taking this action after pressure from some residents of the Sant Roc neighborhood became more visible than ever. On Tuesday, some of these residents blocked the C-31 highway, causing several hours of traffic jams. According to sources consulted by ARA, the protesters were denouncing a robbery at a home and claimed that the perpetrator was one of the people living under the highway overpass. Now, this move by the City Council puts the ball in the court of the Catalan government.
