Six families have been living since March 2024 in La Puntual, at number 64 Pere Martell street in Tarragona, a block that had been empty and deteriorating for more than a decade. The building, occupied by the Sindicat de l"Habitatge de Tarragona to house families with children, has also become the organization's headquarters and an emergency flat.
The property appears as one of the abandoned buildings that Adif had in Tarragona. It is not the only case. The public company also has another building in the Part Baixa, in Plaça dels Carros, which is partially abandoned. The exact number of Adif properties in the city and in the entire demarcation remains unclear.
A discussed inventory in the province
A few months ago, the Adif work center committee in the province of Tarragona demanded from the company a list of these assets. The request was made given the situation of abandonment and disuse of part of that public heritage.
"In large part it is a heritage that is in a state of abandonment and disuse" - Daniel Esparza, president of the Adif work center committee in Tarragona
The list provided by the company corresponds to February 2024. In it appeared 43 properties that did not meet habitability conditions and for which possible irregular occupations needed to be checked. Of that total, 22 were in the Barcelona demarcation and 21 in the Tarragona regions.
However, the committee maintains that this inventory does not reflect reality. In the list provided by Adif, there are no properties in the city of Tarragona nor the apartments that the company has next to Reus station, also abandoned. The list only includes 20 properties on Aragó street in Móra la Nova and one in El Vendrell.
"We demand to have a real inventory, since in different municipalities there are properties that are part of the company's heritage and which, however, remain empty, without maintenance or adequate conservation" - Adif work center Committee in Tarragona
The railway colony of Sant Vicenç de Calders, a singular case
Among Adif's properties in the demarcation, the Sant Vicenç de Calders railway colony stands out, built at the beginning of the 20th century. The complex totals a hundred houses built for company workers and still maintains tenants who pay rent to Adif.
The El Vendrell City Council and the Generalitat have already taken the first steps to recover this area and convert it into social housing. The works council shares that line and proposes that these properties can be rehabilitated to be used for housing, also with possible railway use.
The committee considers it unacceptable that public heritage with potential social use remains closed and deteriorating in a context of housing crisis. It has also asked Adif's management and the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility to evaluate the state of these properties to activate rehabilitation and utilization measures, with criteria of transparency and social responsibility.
"In Catalonia we have a very serious problem of staff shortage, which is normally covered by people from outside. If these homes were made available to Adif workers, which is what they were for, it would make their permanence in this autonomous community more attractive" - Daniel Esparza, president of the Adif work center committee in Tarragona
The political petition in Tarragona
The debate about these properties already reached the municipal sphere. In February of last year, the councilor of En Comú Podem in Tarragona Jordi Collado sent a letter to the president of Adif, Pedro Marco de la Peña, in which he proposed exploring the transfer of empty properties, renovated or pending renovation, to allocate them to social housing.
In that writing, Collado warned of the serious difficulties of access to housing in Tarragona and argued that Adif, as owner of several properties in the city, could play a decisive role. He also pointed out that the City Council had budgetary capacity to rehabilitate them and make them available to the most vulnerable families, in addition to urging the public company to open a constructive dialogue.
The answer he received was that Adif did not have flats in Tarragona. That version clashes with the existence of buildings like La Puntual or the property in Plaça dels Carros, both located in the city. After the agreement between president Salvador Illa and archbishop Joan Planellas for the transfer of Church properties for social housing, Collado now places Adif as the next objective.
Without offer in the demarcation
On Adif's website there is a specific section for the commercialization of properties, with rental and sale of premises, homes, and land. At the time this situation refers to, there was no Adif property available in the Tarragona demarcation.
While the discussion continues about the real inventory of assets and their state of conservation, La Puntual has become the most visible example in Tarragona of public heritage empty for years that today houses families with minors in the midst of a residential emergency.