Salt eviction sparks clashes over housing crisis

Salt: when a squatted flat is the only roof available

What happens when a municipality has more vacant flats owned by large landlords than families looking for a home? In Salt, a town of 35,000 inhabitants near Girona, the answer was written in stones. The eviction of Kalilou Diawara, a 70-year-old imam, his vvife and four minor children, after five years of unpaid mortgage, triggered two nights of unrest: fifty people attacked the police station and a hundred, mostly masked, burned containers near City Hall. The family had not paid the mortgage on a bank-owned flat for five years. The trigger was not just the eviction. It was the realization that, in Salt, 37% of residents are foreigners and housing access has become a dead-end labyrinth.

The problem is not squatting: it is the lack of rental market

The equation is simple and brutal. According to the Salt Housing Union, there are more than 1,800 flats held by major landlords waiting for buyers. Sareb, the state bad bank, holds 135 real estate assets in the municipality. Many of these homes are empty, fitted with alarms to prevent occupation, and are not rented out. Àlex Barceló, Deputy Mayor for Territory and Housing, summarizes it: the big problem is «vacant housing in the hands of vulture funds, which accounts for the highest percentage of evictions».

For the most vulnerable, those empty homes become the only way out. Here, the debate is not whether squatting is right or wrong. Shelter comes first. «If a family with children moves into a bank’s flat that the bank refuses to rent, they should be allowed to stay. I am sorry, but people cannot live like this on the street», says Yassin, 19, born in Nador and raised in Catalonia, who works in a barbershop and points to the closed shutters on Àngel Guimerà Street. His sister, pregnant with twins, ruled out renting a studio without rooms for €550 because she did not know «where to put the kids».

The tension is not an isolated phenomenon. Diawara’s eviction — known as Papa Diawara — lit the fuse of growing discontent. After the eviction, the man tried to re-enter the home, the alarm went off, the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan regional police) arrived and carried out a swift eviction during which, according to the family, he was hit and pushed. This version has not been officially confirmed. What is certain is that, before the second night of riots, Diawara sent an audio message to his contacts asking for calm: «Let the young people do nothing; if they want to gather, let it be peaceful». It was useless. One of his nine daughters, Henda, said sarcastically: «If anyone acted like fools, it was because they wanted to. Do not drag my father into it».

Why were the clashes not a show of solidarity?

Most of those who took to the streets neither frequent the mosque where Diawara leads prayers nor really know him. The clashes were an expression of rage, not support for a community leader. Information circulating in Salt’s streets is of poor quality, fueling the noise. But beneath the noise lies a shared diagnosis: housing is the target of all evils. «People come here to work, to build Spain. But they need a roof. Most have no money to buy, because they have no savings. And they cannot rent because there is no rental housing», says Yassin.

Returning home is not a taboo subject. Salimata Frakone, 60, has spent a third of her life in the city and now considers returning to Mali. «The young guys are leaving for France, England... Only the old will remain», she says in an African fashion shop. Mother of eight, she bought a flat with her husband, but they stopped paying the installments. The European dream has broken in Salt, and not only for migrants.

The official narrative and persistent unrest

The City Council, led by Esquerra Republicana (ERC), shares the diagnosis regarding vacant housing held by funds. But its management does not convince everyone. Some argue that the council is part of the problem, not the solution. Others go further and speak of misconduct. Public debate is filled with cross-accusations, while evictions continue and waiting lists for social housing do not shorten.

Housing unrest is not exclusive to Salt. It is the tip of the iceberg of a model that expels young people and workers from cities. In Salt, 37% of residents are foreigners, according to the Statistical Institute of Catalonia. Coexistence becomes tense when the market fails. And when the market fails, patchwork policies are insufficient. The issue is not who squats, but why thousands of flats remain empty while families sleep on the street. For now, the answer is written in stones. And that is how we fare.