PAH de Lleida demanded this Tuesday the immediate incorporation of Sareb's empty flats in the demarcation to the housing emergency table during a protest in front of a block belonging to the entity in the Bordeta neighborhood. The building has been closed for nearly ten years and has about thirty flats, according to the platform's denouncement.
The action gathered several activists, who hung posters on the facade of the building to make their demand visible. During the concentration, the Guàrdia Urbana identified the participants and reminded them of the obligation to have authorization when twenty people are exceeded.
An empty block in la Bordeta as a symbol of the protest
The mobilization focused on a property owned by Sareb which, according to the PAH, could have been allocated for years to respond to families in a situation of housing emergency. The spokesperson for the platform, Sara Ferrer, summarized the complaint thus.
"It is an enormous building that could have housed many families, but it has remained empty with an armored door" Sara Ferrer, spokesperson for the PAH
The entity maintains that the situation of this block is not an isolated case. The PAH estimates at around 5,340 the empty flats of Sareb in Catalunya and assures that around 400 would be in the city of Lleida, while between 100 and 200 more would be located in the rest of the demarcation.
More than 3,000 families in waiting
The platform frames the protest in the lack of response to the demand for emergency housing. According to what it states, more than 3,000 families remain on the emergency lists with waiting times that exceed 522 days, a situation that they consider incompatible with the existence of thousands of closed flats.
The PAH also directed criticism at the new public operator Casa 47. The entity questions its economic requirements and denounces that it sets a minimum rent of 16.800 euros annually to be able to access certain rentals, a condition that, in its opinion, excludes part of the families with more difficulties.
With this action in la Bordeta, the platform insists that empty properties be mobilized urgently to address the housing emergency in Lleida and throughout the demarcation, while maintaining pressure for administrations to expand the public housing stock and reduce waiting times.