Colau leaves flat she lived in for 15 years because she can't make ends meet

Colau leaves flat she occupied for 15 years as she can't make ends meet

Ada Colau lived for more than fifteen years in the same flat in Barcelona. She no longer lives there. The reason she herself put on the table: on one salary she couldn't make it to the end of the month, so she now shares a home with a relative. The former mayor of Barcelona, who spent eight years at the helm of the city council, told the story just as her name is once again being mentioned as a candidate in a general election if a “genuinely broad” left-wing front takes shape. The sequence —leaving her home for lack of money and opening the door to a return to public office— is what has sparked the issue.

How much was Ada Colau paid as mayor of Barcelona?

The tracking published by Newtral puts her pay as a Barcelona city councillor at 96.000 euros gross a year during her eight years in office. Some add allowances and other supplements to that figure; the exact total of what she received has never been settled. On the other side, it is argued that she gave up a large part of her salary and donated it, although the exact destination of those donations is not detailed anywhere in the available material. From that starting point, the awkward question writes itself: eight years on the public payroll and no cushion to pay rent.

The two versions that don't add up

The most repeated argument does not dispute the fact, it frames it: if she is lying when she says she can't pay for the flat, the problem is credibility; if she is not lying, the problem is management, and then the question is what someone who can't manage their own money would do with other people's. It is not an elegant syllogism, but it is hard to dodge. Against that, another line argues the opposite: there is a point of coherence in someone who speaks out about housing prices from her own experience, in a calm tone and without fuss. The disagreement is not in the numbers. It is in what is done with them.

Shipping containers and housing powers

Municipal housing policy is back at the centre. In December 2019, the Aprop programme erected a block with 12 recycled shipping containers at a cost of 940.000 euros, presented at the time as an “innovative and effective” solution for families awaiting permanent housing. That is where the question nobody fully answers appears: if housing is the responsibility of town halls and regional governments, eight years in the mayor's office are more than enough of a laboratory to measure results. The housing law and its regional implementation fuel the debate, with Catalonia as the backdrop.

Why rents in Barcelona are still soaring

The most widespread diagnosis points to falling rental supply, an insufficient rate of construction and out-of-range sale prices, with Barcelona in a situation as bad as or worse than Madrid's. The critical reading adds hyperregulation as a stranglehold on the market, not a remedy. Neither explains why two people with high, stable incomes end up sharing a flat, and that is precisely the part of the story that doesn't quite fit.

One detail remains that throws you off: the news that she is leaving her home and the news of her possible return to the polls came very close together. No figure can make sense of that coincidence.