Around fifty nursing homes in Eixample are in danger of closing due to speculation

BarcelonaThe Tàber nursing home in Barcelona has two weeks left before it closes its doors and the 23 residents with public places are distributed among the centres that the Department of Social Rights and Inclusion has had to find for them in a hurry. A vulture fund has bought the property, in the heart of Eixample, to build luxury homes, in an operation that is repeated in many buildings in the district. The management of the residence notified the relatives on 6 February that due to force majeure it would not continue with the activity, although weeks before it had already informed the department so that it would have time to relocate these very vulnerable people.

The news has outraged the relatives because of the methods that have been used and because a month earlier the management of the residence had accepted two new residents, without informing them that there was an imminent order to close. The Social Rights Office assures that right now all the residents who occupy a public place already have another reserved in a center in the city of Barcelona, ​​​​but as for the two who have a private one, it will be the relatives who will have to take charge of finding them a new geriatric service.

Beyond this human hustle and bustle for residents and families, the closure of a residence only worsens the lack of places for an increasingly ageing population that needs permanent care and can no longer live at home. From Upimir, the Catalan employers' association of small and medium-sized residences, they warn that the case of La Tàber is not a unique or isolated case in Barcelona, ​​​​and they calculate that the 1,400 places that currently exist in the Eixample neighborhood run the same risk if nothing is done.

The president of the entity, Ignasi Freixa, estimates that as the leases expire on around fifty residences inside buildings, more closures will begin to emerge. They are small centres, most with less than 35 places. "They will fall in a cascade because many contracts end this year, 2026, 2027 and even 2030," illustrates this businessman in the sector, who affirms that "in some cases" the management of the residences have already been warned that their contract will not be renewed. "They are not offered the possibility of negotiating prices because there is a desire to make tourist apartments, which are more business than a residence," he points out.

Although Social Rights has reported that it already has places to relocate the users affected by the Tàber, Freixa questions this facility if the closures that he predicts occur. The people in The waiting list for a public place is in the thousands (13,000, according to the latest data from the department itself), with a wait of almost three years.

But the employers' association points to another problem that makes the continuity of many residences difficult. In fact, the difficulty is so great that the department headed by Mònica Martínez-Bravo has granted an extension for these centres to present the accreditation of their characteristics, which, in principle, should have been presented before October.

Rejecting public places

With this process, which is included in decree law 2/23, the Government obliges residences that offer public (and also concerted) places to comply with a series of requirements if they want to continue collaborating with the administration. Employers' associations and directors of the sector warn that 12,000 jobs are at risk and they have rejected the criteria set out for being too strict and impossible to become a reality with the current buildings: for example, triple rooms are prohibited, 10% must be reserved for single rooms, there are staff ratios, etc.

For Freixa, these requirements are impossible, and he states that it is not worth it for the residences to accept residents from public places, because the investment for the works or to increase the staff would be too high and due to the sustained underfunding of nursing homes. On the other hand, private spaces are a safe bet because a vacancy is filled within a few days.

The leader of the employers' association indicates that the Catalan administration and the town councils must strive to "protect" the buildings and look for properties that are only for social uses, thus avoiding speculation by those looking for a real estate business. "In the Eixample there is a perfect storm of rents, and it is not known what Social Rights wants to do with the criteria," says Freixa.