"I have papers and I speak the language, I just need a place to live": evicted from a warehouse in Badalona

BadalonaAnother eviction in Badalona, ​​​​with a large police presence. A dozen Mossos d'Esquadra units arrived this morning on Antoni Borí Street to clear a warehouse where around 40 homeless people have been living for years. According to SOS Racisme, the majority are sub-Saharan Africans who live off scrap metal they collect on the street. Despite the heavy police mobilization, the eviction proceeded without incident and the 20 or so residents inside were evicted. The National Police arrested one person and the Mossos d'Esquadra charged three others with a crime against public health, misappropriation of a stolen phone, and possession of a knife (a knife that was confiscated). The occupied premises are owned by Banc Sabadell.

This isn't the first time the eviction of this building has been announced, although it is the final one. In fact, the electricity was cut off at the end of February, forcing many of the people living in Antoni Bori to look for a new place to stay. Many of those who moved in search of warmth ended up going to The abandoned B-9 institute, where there has also been a threat of eviction for some time nowThe vast majority of those evicted today are expected to end up taking the same path.

But one who rules it out is Sadio. He arrived in Catalonia from Senegal in 2014. He explains that, during this time, he has slept on the street, on the beach, "everywhere." He moved into the warehouse just before the pandemic and acknowledges that "it wasn't the best place to live," but that it was already useful, "it was a roof." He now plans to move to another occupied warehouse in Sant Roc, although he explains that it is temporary and that he will have to return to the street. "Everything is full," he notes.

El Djamal also rules it out: "I don't want to go to B-9. I've already been there and I don't want to go back." This young Algerian has lived in Catalonia for seven years, and had been living in the vacated warehouse for more than five years. He says the neighbors are no longer helping them; "they're tired." Now he wants to try to apply for some municipal resource. "I have the papers and I speak the language; I just need a place to live," he says. Yanela, on the other hand, has been living in B-9 for a week now. "They're well organized there, everyone has their own space," she explains. She arrived here in 1992 from Cuba and has been eking out a living in warehouses for twelve years now. In fact, resided on Gorg's burned ship, just a few meters from where she was evicted this morning. "They won't offer us any solution," she says.

Although the eviction date was announced a month ago, some of those who remained inside were still taking carts loaded with clothes and blankets.

The interior of the ship will be thrown to the ground

The mayor of Badalona, ​​Xavier García Albiol, explained in a video posted on social media that this Thursday the interior of the warehouse will be demolished so that "no one else will ever occupy it again." Albiol boasted about this "historic strike" and accused the residents of generating "conflicts, insecurity, and crime."

Although police sources told ARA that only one arrest was made during the operation, the PP mayor asserted that there were more than one because some of the attendees "became violent." ARA arrived before the mayor and left later, and was able to verify that the eviction proceeded without incident, although it is true that some residents protested the police operation, which they described as "disproportionate."