Evicted: Father and Son Forced Out of Social Housing in Vallecas on the Same Day as Maricarmen

While the entire country held its breath over the eviction of Maricarmen, just a few kilometers away in Vallecas, David and his son were also being evicted by police from apartments that the Fundación La Caixa recently sold. The new owners have decided to sell the units. The protest of dozens of neighbors did not stop the eviction either. David, 52, and his 21-year-old son had lived there since 2007, paying 400 euros in social rent protected by the bank's real estate arm. David had heart surgery in 2019 and suffers from early-stage depression and anxiety. His contract expired in 2022. Facing the eviction order, a court initially ruled in his favor, but the Provincial Court later determined he had to leave. The eviction of David and his son may be the first of dozens from these former social housing units that lost protection after contracts expired and the Fundación La Caixa sold them to the funds Mosaic Propco, Farley, and IGT Básico. The Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) demands that these funds negotiate with tenants, as they cannot afford the sale prices being asked, which exceed 250,000 euros. The Fundación Social sold two blocks with about 200 families in Vallecas to Mosaic Propco and another with 300 in Vicálvaro to Farley, while ITG Básico is the manager handling all three blocks. "We point to both these funds and La Caixa for speculating with housing," denounce voices from PAH Vallecas. The Fundación La Caixa indicated at the time that "in the process of managing the real estate portfolio, isolated cases of disagreement with some residents of these developments can arise," which they try to resolve "case by case." "If a situation of accredited vulnerability is detected, InmoCaixa acts hand in hand with the Administration to give time and space so that a residential solution can be found for those people," said a spokesperson, who acknowledges that "if there is no vulnerability, a friendly solution is attempted" but "if it is not possible, after a reasonable time the legal/judicial process is initiated." David will spend the night at a neighbor's house, and his son also has somewhere to stay, but only short-term. According to PAH, social services have noted the case without offering a housing alternative. Both unemployed, they relied on the Minimum Vital Income and continued paying 450 euros in rent even after the contract ended. CriteriaCaixa, the investment arm of Caixabank, has decided to divest from the real estate sector to focus on industrial and dispose of toxic assets inherited from mergers. CriteriaCaixa's real estate company, InmoCaixa, has sold practically its entire housing portfolio in Spain in just a few years, which amounted to around 4,000 apartments for market-rate and especially officially protected rent. Its main buyer has been the Generalitat: when all announced acquisitions close, the government of Salvador Illa will have acquired half of them, just over 2,000, all that the bank subsidiary had in Catalonia, in the Executive's will to expand the public housing stock in the coming years. This is not the case for the Madrid blocks, which have passed into the hands of funds that prioritize their business over the well-being of their tenants.