2023-11-15 23:23:25
BarcelonaOne in ten occupied flats is “conflicting”. In other words, in only 10% of cases the people who occupy a house enter it violently and then create problems with the neighborhood, such as dirt, noise or confrontations. In other words, the vast majority of occupied flats go almost unnoticed. This is one of the main conclusions of the study by the Cerdà Institute, which updates the employment situation in Catalonia after a first report in 2016. Seven years later, occupations are “less conflictual” , there are fewer in which supplies are injected into the community and there are also fewer that have criminal purposes, such as drug flats.
Overall, there are also fewer occupied flats: in all of Spain there are 78,000, according to the calculations of the Cerdà Institute. Compared to 2016, there are practically 10,000 fewer. And if we look at 2018, when the same institute made a new approximation, there are more than 20,000 fewer. The trend, then, is clear: employment is going down. Now, this is not necessarily good news. “[L’ocupació] It continues to have a very important magnitude and has the risk of becoming chronic”, warns Lluís Anglada, a technician at the Cerdà Institute. Accompanied by other data, such as the fact that Spain is in the queue of European countries in the construction of social housing, that every time people spend a higher percentage of their salary on rent (up to 43%) or that the rate of social exclusion rises, the fact that there are still practically 80,000 occupied homes, even if they are less than five years ago , it is still “worrying” data.
The situation in Catalonia is also worrying. 14% of the State’s population lives there and 14% of homes in all of Spain are also concentrated there. Instead, there are 40% of jobs at the state level. According to the institute’s estimates, there are more than 30,000 occupied homes out of a total of 78,000 throughout Spain. In an event at the College of Economists of Catalonia, the Cerdà Institute presented this set of data after interviewing several representatives of the sector, from large holders to small owners.
However, the fact that the occupations phenomenon is at risk of becoming chronic does not mean that there are no positive indicators. One is occupied flats themselves, which is down 20%, but home invasion convictions and court-ordered evictions have also fallen 40%.
According to the Cerdà Institute, these declines are explained, among other reasons, by a decrease in empty homes or a more “proactive” management of public housing parks. They insist, however, that there is still a lot of work to be done, especially in the field of building social and affordable housing. They claim that it is one of the keys so that employment does not end up becoming chronic. For example, they warn that Catalonia is the only autonomous community that has adopted legislative measures to deal with occupation since 2016. This year’s study also confirms that occupations rarely affect small owners: of all occupied flats , approximately 80% are from large holders. The remaining part mainly correspond to small holders, and an “anecdotal” percentage, according to the study, are private flats.
concentration
The percentage of occupied flats that generate conflict is also practically anecdotal, although this figure grows considerably when many occupations are concentrated in a few square kilometers. In these environments, conflict increases and so do homes used for criminal purposes. An example would be the Raval de Barcelona and the narcopisos, most of which are occupied.
In this sense, the study by the Cerdà Institute also warns that there are more and more occupants who get to the flats through mafias and criminal groups who closely monitor the homes that remain empty. The authors of the work reach this conclusion after listening to the perceptions of owners and entities, although, at the moment, the phenomenon does not have a translation in police data. Nevertheless, the Mossos d’Esquadra have been operational in this regard: last November, for example, they dismantled a mafia that was renting flats that they themselves had occupied a few hours earlier. They even placed crying babies behind the door when the police arrived to execute the eviction. Seeing that there were children, the Mossos could not enter the flat and left. Afterwards, the mafia resettled a family there who paid them rent.
In fact, as warned by the Cerdà Institute, the profile of the occupier has changed: if in 2016 the vast majority were vulnerable families who had been evicted, now there are more “heterogeneous” people. For example, profiles that directly choose employment as the first alternative to owning a home. However, when mafias are hiding behind the occupations, often the victims are also vulnerable families. They go in thinking it’s a completely legal rental, and in reality they’re occupying a home.
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