I am 24 years old and my family and I have already been kicked out of the apartment even though we have jobs

Barcelona"Don't watch us, join us". This is the message on the banner at what can be considered the entrance to the encampment that has been set up since this Tuesday in Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona to demand decent housing. By mid-afternoon, the banner made more sense than ever: there were almost more onlookers around the tents watching and taking photos than people participating in the mobilization. But as the sun began to set, the scene changed, and by around nine in the evening, there were about 300 people – on Tuesday there were a hundred – who claim they will spend the night there. The vast majority are not yet thirty, and rather than the 15-M movement from fifteen years ago, they take as a reference the hundreds of people who have been camping in Madrid's Plaza del Sol since this weekend.

Spread out in groups of five or six, the activists sit and chat while others who have just arrived set up their tents on the tiles of the square. In one of these small groups are Mònica and Carla. Both are 24 years old and are lifelong residents of Barcelona. "We will be here at least until Friday," explains Mònica. She says that, although insufficient, the two decrees being voted on are "a first step and better than nothing". "In the end, what needs to be achieved is to lower the rent price because wages have not risen at the same speed," she insists. She says this from experience: "I haven't moved out because I have trauma. I'm 24 years old and my family and I have already been kicked out of our apartment despite having jobs," she describes.

Mònica explains that, after living in the same apartment for twelve years, they were pressured to leave so they could raise the rent "by about 700 euros" and in the end, they were kicked out. "We are a family of three and now we live in an apartment that doesn't have a single window to the outside. It's like a basement under a grate," she denounces. She assures that this is the reason why she doesn't even consider looking for a rental apartment on her own. "Apart from the fact that it's obvious I can't afford it, I'm not willing to keep losing money on an exorbitant rent while I worry about whether they'll kick me out one day," she insists. Beside her, one of the friends who went to buy bottles of water nods in agreement.

Between group and group there is a kind of murmur of comments and questions: "Do you have a mobile phone charger?", "tell them not to bring any more food, we need awnings". A few meters away, a little closer to the only two Guardia Urbana vans that, at least visibly, are in the square, there is another group. They are three boys and two girls from Terrassa. They have also camped there, although yesterday they already stopped by to check out the encampment. They explain that they will sleep in the square "until who knows when" and that they will take turns going to work and study without the space being left empty. "Whether the decrees go ahead or not will change nothing. In the end, it's smoke they throw to silence us. They are such small measures that in a few months we will be back to the same situation", one of them denounces. "This is Spain", complains a man around fifty, looking at the encampment from the outside with his hands behind his back.

Casserole protest at city halls this Thursday

This Wednesday, the Tenants' Union has announced new mobilizations across the State to pressure political parties ahead of the vote in Congress on the two housing decrees scheduled for this Friday. In a statement, the union has announced that it is calling for pot-banging protests in front of all town halls this Thursday at 8 p.m. "Let no party dare to betray with a vote against it the social outcry expressed these days in the streets," they warn.

On the other hand, and regardless of whether the decrees are approved or not, the union has also called for a demonstration for Saturday at 7 p.m. at Pius XII Square in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. They assert that "an emergency regulation, like these decrees, will not be able to reverse decades of policies that have turned housing into a business" and call for mobilization this weekend to take advantage of "a historic window of opportunity to change housing policies once and for all." The mobilization will also feature two columns that will depart from Barcelona and from Sabadell to end at the demonstration in L'Hospitalet.