Who lives in the abandoned school that Albiol wants to vacate?
ARA speaks to some of the 400 people occupying B9 in Badalona, whom the mayor accuses of being violent and delinquent.
BadalonaFor a kilo of scrap metal, he only gets paid 15 cents, but it's the only way he makes a living. "Even scrap metal isn't useful to us anymore, but what should we do?" asks Badu, who is 53 years old and arrived in Catalonia 18 years ago looking for a better life. He is one of the survivors of The burned-out industrial warehouse in the Gorg de Badalona in 2020, where a hundred people were evicted and where five died due to the fire. Since then, he has been on a roll and has been evicted from every place he's lived until a year ago he found a place to live in the old B9 high school in Badalona, where he lives with more than 400 people that the City Council of Xavier García Albiol (PP) wants to evict imminently. For the moment, however, there is still no execution date, and like Badu, the occupants insist that evicting them will not solve the problem. "If their plan worked, we wouldn't live here," he says. These people will continue to need a place to live, whether in the same city or in others.
Now A year ago the ARA entered the abandoned institute for the first time., which is owned by the City Council. During this time, the number of people living there has doubled: at the time, there were around 200. Virtually all of the residents of B9 are men and come from other settlements in the city who have been evicted, and they have nowhere else to go. This is the common denominator among all of them: they claim that the lack of opportunities and decent housing forces them to live in squalor in abandoned places and to earn a living in the most precarious ways.
On numerous occasions, Albiol has accused them of being violent and criminals. They insist: they want to find work and a place to live with dignity. The mayor has also publicly denied them assistance and made it very clear that municipal resources will only assist those already within the social services network. With this condition, most of the occupants of B9 are fully aware that they will be left without alternatives once they are evicted.
The institute has changed a lot to accommodate the 200 people who have arrived in the last year. A year ago, there was a courtyard and a vegetable garden, but now they have been replaced by new shacks that provide shelter for the trickle of people arriving. One of the first to settle in B9 was Haji Dukuray. It was shortly after the pandemic. He explains that at first, there were only a few people on the premises, but since the City Council has redoubled its efforts to evict other settlements or occupied buildings, they have had to work hard to find a space open to everyone and ensure that no one sleeps on the streets. "We can't be the only ones helping," Haji laments.
He is 50 years old and has spent half his life in Catalonia. He had been evicted from a shelter and had nowhere else to go when he found a large abandoned building in the Sant Roc neighborhood that could serve as his home. Almost three years later, he has become the leader of a small community. In fact, he acts as a liaison between the occupants of B9 and the neighbors, social services, and the police. He also oversees nighttime surveillance with his dog, Tupac, and looks for ways to create new spaces for people who come to the institute asking for help. "We left our countries to come to work; that's all we want: a place to live and be able to work," he explains.
Haji is clear that right now there's no alternative for the more than 400 people he lives with: "If they kick us out, where will we go?" He says he's excited because next week he has a job interview as a security guard. He's eager for it to go well and for them to take him. He's been looking for a job opportunity for some time, without success. He's met several times with job placement professionals and the social worker to find a solution, and finally this opportunity has come his way.
The streets, the only alternative?
The High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has already approved the Badalona City Council's right to evict the former high school. Municipal sources have explained to ARA that the council, together with the Department of the Interior, is preparing a petition to the court to set a date for the eviction. The same sources affirm that once the 400 people living there are evicted, the municipal government's plan is to demolish the building. This week, the defense of the people living in B9 filed a complaint with the Office for Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination in an attempt to stop this eviction. The TSJC has already denied an appeal, considering that fundamental rights were not violatedof its occupants, but now they hope to slow down the process, at least until the office makes a statement.
There's a recurring question: where will these people go if an eviction date is finally set? Abdul is clear: "We'll have to live 400 people on the streets. At least here, in B9, we have a roof over our heads." He's been in Spain for 21 years and says he's worked in everything. "I make a living however I can," he says. Before settling into high school, where he's been living for a year, he lived in an apartment he paid for by collecting scrap metal, but they kicked him out. At that time, B9 was full; there was no room for him, and he spent four months sleeping on the streets because he couldn't find any alternative. The school let him shower, but then he had to leave, until they finally made a place for him so he wouldn't have to continue sleeping outdoors. And he warns that with the arrival of cold weather, the streets can't be the only alternative. "Winter is coming now; if we don't have a roof over our heads, what will happen to us? An African will die every day," he exclaims. He's the B9 resident who shows the most anger, and he lashed out directly at Albiol: "He's very tall, yes, but he's got a small brain."
"I won't leave Badalona."
Like Abdul, the rest of the people ARA spoke to are asking for a solution that won't send them out onto the streets. Sitting in the Keta bar, a makeshift space inside B9 that functions as a social space now that the patio has practically disappeared, Wiliam Kwami says that if he's evicted, he'll look for another place to live in the city. He arrived in Catalonia almost 24 years ago and has two children living in Badalona, one five years old and the other two. "Thank God they live somewhere else with their mother, but I won't leave the city," he maintains. Every morning he walks his eldest son to school and then tries to make a living however he can, but says finding work is getting harder every day.
He was evicted from the apartment where he lived in Sant Roc because he couldn't pay, and he's been in B9 for two and a half years. Since he doesn't have papers, he's been getting fewer and fewer calls for work. "I used to get a lot of calls to do bricklaying, but not anymore," he laments. It's been three months since he last worked on a construction site. "Scrap metal is dead, but it's the only thing I have left now," he says, resigned. He was one of the B9 occupants who came to Valencia to help after the Dana disaster and wants to stay in Badalona to work so he can be close to his children. "Without a job, I can't help the mother of my children. What will happen if they leave us on the street? Are we animals or what?" he insists.
Agriculture student
Younous Drame is another of the B9 community leaders. He's been living there for two years now, having spent time in Mataró, Premià de Mar, and Barcelona, mostly working as a gardener and fruit harvester, but also as a waiter, a bricklayer, and whatever else is needed, he says. He doesn't hesitate for a second about his hobbies: gardening. "I love plants," he says with a smile. He knows he has the patience and skill needed to take care of them, and he was one of the driving forces behind the garden that used to be at B9. Faced with the influx of people asking for help, it became clear to him that he had to resign and is now studying organic farming to find work in the future. At B9, they make their own fertilizer with food scraps, eggshells, and coffee grounds, and he's clear that when he returns to his home country, he doesn't want to engage in large-scale agriculture that uses toxic substances.
"We came here to earn a living. No one wants to live this way, but we have no alternative," he explains, along with his colleagues. He asserts that most of the occupants of B9 are quiet, hard-working people and questions Albiol's statements, because if it were all criminals, "who would want to live here?" Therefore, he insists that the solution is to find decent housing and work for these people, rather than "spreading hatred" toward them. "In Africa, no one knows what it means to be an squatter," he asserts. Aside from the people who have arrived from other evicted settlements, there is also a significant number of newcomers who have recently arrived in Catalonia and, having no alternative, show up at B9 asking for help.
No Options
Often, people like the occupants of B9 carry heavy burdens: many suffer the impact of migration and traumatic separations, and seek a better life, but they come up against an administration with convoluted procedures, language and cultural barriers, social exclusion, and racism. And living in this space—which has long been underserved by demand—is evidence of the municipal government's inaction on social issues. Albiol has evicted people like the subjects of this report from almost all the settlements, and has done so by championing a stigmatizing and criminalizing discourse.
This August, the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) arrested a man for killing another man inside the school following a fight. Haji explains that they had been in B9 for a very short time and barely knew them, but that they had no other options and took them in. After the crime, he claims to have been patrolling the premises every night with his dog to ensure their coexistence. Again, at this point in the conversation, the question is raised as to why they are "the only ones who help" people who have nowhere else to go.
Nor have the nine cases of tuberculosis detected in the building in the last two years softened Albiol's argument in favor of their expulsion, who remains determined to remove them as soon as possible. The Department of Health has already ruled out any risk of the disease spreading, arguing that all those who tested positive have received treatment, and ARA has confirmed that some of the occupants, who do not wish to be named, returned to B9 a few days ago after having been in the Hospital de Sant Pau. However, they warn that the number of residents will continue to increase until solutions beyond eviction are offered. Haji insists that no matter how much they're kicked out of B9 or how much Albiol wants to expel them from Badalona, they won't disappear. "I think about the suffering of 400 people: who will help them if we don't?" he asks.