and this Tuesday Barcelona saw a new building of tenants threatened with being expelled from their apartments: the residents of number 83 Sepúlveda Street, in the Sant Antoni neighborhood (), presented themselves as a “block in struggle.” With the help of the district’s Socialist Housing Union, they explained that, last June, the heirs of the property of the farm sold it to a company and some neighbors have begun to receive communications warning that their contracts will not be renewed as they end. The new property is Vandor, “a real estate investment, promotion and management firm based in Barcelona, focused on the” segment, according to its website.
Like many others in Eixample, it is a building where neighbors have lived since they were born, families with minor children, and some single parents. Of the 28 floors of the property, there are already nine empty. The rest live with the sword of Damocles at the end of their contracts. Those that will finish sooner are one in December and another at the beginning of 2026. Erika, one of the neighbors, reported in a press conference that there are people in vulnerable situations on the farm and reported: “Little by little, neighbors have been leaving, who wanted to avoid the conflict, or because they thought they had nothing to do in this situation.” In the case of the new building that its neighbors have announced, the empty homes are not yet under construction and remain closed.
“Sepúlveda 83 is one more example of how the real estate business forces people to abandon their homes: large owners and investment funds buy entire buildings and profit through the practices of , to the detriment of housing as a basic right,” the members of the Union insisted, citing the case of Bloc Papallona on Llançà Street, just a few hundred meters from Sepúlveda, 83.
The Union and the organized neighbors assured that they have tried to contact Vandor, “but there has been no response.” By making their cases known, they seek to pressure to start “a negotiation” with their new landlord and “stop the emptying of the building.” Among those affected is also Boris Oleart, who told Betevé that his contract will expire in a few months and expressed his fear for the future: “My children are attending school in the neighborhood, we have our support network here and we could not stay in Sant Antoni or the neighborhood next door, due to the high price of rents.”
In February of this year, from a study by the Federation of Neighborhood Associations (FAVB), the five district associations (Dreta, Esquerra, Nova Esquerra, Sagrada Familia and Fort Pienc) and the Tenants’ Union. In the district, they warned, there are 232 properties that have been purchased or are managed by companies, 70% of rentals are seasonal (if you search on the internet portals), 21% of the beds in the district are for tourist purposes, and since 2016 there have been (in which the neighbors have not left of their own free will, but because they could not face the conditions imposed on them by new landlords). The associations speak of 10,000 neighbors expelled by these invisible evictions (multiplying the buildings by an average of 17 apartments per property and 2.5 people per apartment, and in a scenario in which 100% of the neighbors would have left).
