One of the last residents of Ferran Street in Barcelona: "They want to kick me out after 62 years"

Barcelona"I live through torture: all evictions are a very hard experience, but you don't live the same way at 30 as you do at 60." The speaker is Elena Olivella, 62 years old. She is, most likely, one of the last "lifelong" residents left on Ferran street in Barcelona, ​​next to the emblematic Sant Jaume square. She holds a title that also has an expiration date, because her eviction is scheduled for March 4.

She walks down the street where she was born in a quiet conversation with the ARA while dodging tourists with suitcases and explains that she, in fact, hardly lives in the neighborhood anymore. "There is nothing left of what it was, it's all souvenir shops, tourist and seasonal apartments and tourists who come and go. If I want to buy anything everyday I have to go to Sant Antoni to find shops, to find a neighborhood. Of course, my house is my little republic, my refuge," she says.

"Now my life has stopped, I live day by day because I don't dare to make plans," she says in relation to the eviction, which she says is causing her a lot of anxiety, both because of the uncertainty and the idea of ​​having to leave the apartment of her life, where her parents settled with her parents. "My health is suffering a lot, I have the feeling that I'm going to have a heart attack constantly," she explains. "The owner, who is a big owner, doesn't need this apartment, he has the whole building as well as other properties, and for me, on the other hand, it is everything in life," she laments.

Elena has been living since January waiting for the eviction order issued by court number 22 of Barcelona to be executed. The owner, who lives in the same blog, wants her out and reported Elena's situation to the courts, despite having a vulnerability report for risk of social exclusion. When her parents died, she inherited the old rental contract they had with the only possible extension allowed by law: two years. Since 2022, then, she is legally out of contract. During this time, advised by a lawyer and by the housing union Resisimos in the Gòtic, she has fought and put resources where she could, proving her vulnerability. But all were rejected.

Currently she only receives an aid of around 200 euros. "However, I have always paid the rent. I am not asking that they let me have the flat for free, but I am asking that they let me keep a rent that I can pay," she sums up. She says that she knows the owners personally. It is a family - she explains - also from the neighbourhood, which she has known for a long time: "They tell me that it is nothing personal. It seems very hard to me, because they have known me all my life, I would be incapable," she reflects.

"A gear at the service of tourism"

Resistimos al Gòtic has publicly denounced its case this Wednesday morning, demanding that the eviction be suspended and that the property agree to negotiate a social rent. They also plan to lodge an appeal with the United Nations today. "Elena meets all the requirements to benefit from the eviction moratorium: her landlord is a large-scale landlord and she has been accredited as vulnerable by Social Services, but the courts have rejected her requests," explains Besa, spokesperson for Resistim al Gòtic. Barcelona City Council has also confirmed to ARA that there is a current vulnerability report.

The association claims that Elena's case is paradigmatic "of the housing crisis in Barcelona of which many residents are victims." "Elena is one of the last residents of Ferran Street, where for years the flats have been passing into the hands of large holders and vulture funds, who empty them of residents to convert them into tourist flats and, lately, into seasonal rental flats," denounces Resistim al Gòtic. And the same occurs with the shops: "It is a whole mechanism that works only in favour of tourism," they say.

A simple glance at the street reinforces this thesis. In the scant four minutes it takes to walk along Ferran Street, between Plaça Sant Jaume and Las Ramblas, there are two fast food supermarkets and at least twenty restaurants or bars with all the signs in English advertising the property.tapas", "bleeding" either "frying panThere are also 15 souvenir shops, another twenty shops clearly aimed at foreigners, selling bags, sunglasses and jewellery, and a hotel, a guest house and a hostel. During the walk, Elena points out the few traditional shops that remain. "Nothing more," she says.

There are also two entire buildings under construction, one of them already "for sale." And multiple doormen that give themselves away: with state-of-the-art automatic intercoms that give the door open. welcome and allow access to the building with a card contactless or a secret code. "They are apartments for rent for the season," confirms Marcos, a Galician who is temporarily living in one of these blogs. "There are no neighbours from the neighbourhood left here, at least I haven't found any," he adds. "We have rented this apartment for three months because we intend to buy here in Barcelona; in this time we have already clearly decided that it will not be in the centre; there is no neighbourhood warmth here, it is all tourists, and that means they have no respect for the neighbours, they are just passing through, a lot of passing through," Marcos explains.

"I try not to pay attention to the neighbourhood and I take refuge in my house, where I can be myself," Elena sums up. A few metres away, two Asian girls are taking selfies from a balcony on the third floor, overlooking the Plaça Sant Jaume de Fons. "Why does Barcelona allow all this? A city that claims to be avant-garde, progressive, tolerant... We should be ashamed of being one of the cities with the highest eviction figures," Elena concludes angrily.