In Sant Adrià de Besòs, the start of mass evictions affecting 58 occupied public housing flats in La Mina has been delayed. The Badalona Court of First Instance No. 5 ordered the postponement, citing service and public force needs, according to a court order seen by El Periódico.
Five evictions had been planned for Wednesday and Thursday, 10 June, but the court put all five on hold. The timing coincided with the Pope’s 48-hour visit to Catalonia, which has brought a major police deployment to Barcelona and the surrounding area. More than 7,000 officers have been mobilised, including 5,600 from the Mossos d’Esquadra.
The homes were occupied in 2017 by residents and families. They had stood empty for a decade before that. The flats were built to rehouse residents from the Venus block, which has been waiting for demolition for more than 20 years. The La Mina Consortium, made up of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the councils of Barcelona and Sant Adrià, and the Diputació, expects the Venus block to be demolished by 2028, with all residents moved out before then.
Occupants say the housing plan changed after they moved in, and that the flats were no longer reserved for Venus street residents. They also point out that Venus street has some of the lowest incomes in the metropolitan area. In the past, residents were often asked to pay a difference, sometimes more than 40,000 euros, to move from an old flat to a new one. That left many families stuck and slowed the demolition process for years. The current system allows residents to exchange homes through administrative offers without an extra payment.
Members of the community group Sindicat d'Habitatge de la Verneda i el Besòs, which supports the households facing eviction, met Sant Adrià council representatives on Wednesday morning. They asked for each family to be reviewed case by case, with solutions for vulnerable households, such as rental agreements or temporary housing assignments. They also said very few families have applied for the housing emergency table so far.
The Sant Adrià council says the evictions must go ahead because this is a mass occupation of public housing. It says people who occupied publicly funded homes cannot be prioritised on emergency housing lists, and that the flats are reserved for Venus residents before the block is demolished. The council and the Department of Social Rights also say there have been attempts to illegally sell and re-rent some of the homes, and that not every case shows a vulnerability that would prevent people from paying for housing.
Despite this week’s delay, 11 evictions are still scheduled in La Mina during June. Three are set for 18 June, another three for 25 June, and four that had been due on Thursday have been moved to 22 June. The eviction planned for Wednesday has been delayed by three months. Further dates are expected on 29 June, 2 July, and 8 July. The Pope is due to leave Barcelona from El Prat at 08:30 on Thursday, and although no papal events are planned in the city that day, the security operation remains in place for the airport transfer.
