The housing encampment arrives in Barcelona: a hundred people in Plaça Catalunya

BarcelonaThe protest that broke out with the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal in Madrid, and which turned into a large encampment at Puerta del Sol on Saturday, has reached Barcelona. This Tuesday, a few hours after the Spanish government approved the new housing decree-laws in the Council of Ministers, but still without the support of its partners, about a hundred people have camped out in Plaça Catalunya with the intention of spending the night there. "The encampment will continue, whether the decree is approved or not," they asserted in a statement on social media, through which they made the call for this Tuesday night, which already totals about twenty tents. After ten o'clock at night, the people who had gathered there were encouraging each other to spend the night, shouting "We are staying, we are staying!"

The protesters organized themselves into an assembly at seven in the evening and in the evening they formed several groups to have dinner. "The idea is to resist, and we hope to be many more," explains Lua to ARA from the center of Plaça Catalunya. According to the call disseminated through social media, the organizers are "a group of people from different housing unions, assemblies, and people with a common concern" who have united "in the face of the difficulties imposed on us to access housing." For the moment, no union has formally called for the gathering, although this evening at the assembly one of the things being evaluated was whether any entity would end up making a call.

"For me, this is vital," Cindy also asserts from the encampment. She is unemployed and spends 45% of her income on the rent of a room. She explains that after that and the expenses to help her family in Colombia, she has 200 euros left to live on. She has come to offer herself as a volunteer to do whatever tasks are needed, such as cooking. While she watches a group of young people setting up a tent, she explains that in 2023 she was arrested and acquitted for allegedly coercing the owner of the apartment where she lived, which she had rented two weeks earlier. She claims that the owner wanted to turn it into a tourist rental and she refused to leave. Like other protesters, she has shared her story at the assembly that was held in the square this evening.

No party or union

The calls spread on social networks ensure that the movement is a call to the citizenry to act in the face of "the increase in evictions, the rise in rent prices, and the repeated inability to access decent housing," and they show skepticism regarding the decisions of Pedro Sánchez's government. "There are many of us who know that any decree approved by the Spanish government will be totally insufficient and will leave out a large part of the population, especially the most precarious," they claim on social networks.

"This struggle must arise from personal self-management and not from any political party or union. Let us remember that it is a class struggle, and that it affects all of us transversally," they insist.

In Barcelona, the embryo of this new protest that recalls the 15-M movement from fifteen years ago was formed this Monday after the protest rally in front of the Barcelona Congress Palace, taking advantage of the presence of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, at the venue.

After this action, about thirty people met at Plaça Catalunya and held an assembly with the intention of camping in the square. In the end, they did not stay, but the protest has ended up materializing this Tuesday.