Authorities have begun evicting 58 occupied public flats in La Mina, Sant Adrià. The move, aimed at relocating residents from the Venus building, has triggered unrest and repeated reoccupations. Tensions remain high.
Evictions in the La Mina neighborhood of Sant Adrià del Besòs have triggered days of unrest, as authorities move to clear 58 public flats on the Rambla that were occupied nearly a decade ago. The operation, led by the Consorcio de la Mina and involving a significant police presence, is set to continue through the end of the year. The flats, originally intended for residents displaced from the deteriorating Venus building, had stood empty for years before being occupied en masse.
The situation escalated last week when police began removing families from the first group of apartments. Despite efforts to secure the vacated properties, including sealing entrances and deploying security, two of the cleared flats were reoccupied within days—one by the same family that had just been evicted. According to local reports, some families insist they have nowhere else to go and plan to return each time they are removed.
On Thursday, three families with children were evicted amid heightened tension and confrontations between residents and riot police. The following Monday, two of those flats were re-entered, and four more apartments were cleared by authorities. Additional evictions are scheduled for the coming week, with the process expected to affect dozens more households before the end of the year.
The Consorcio de la Mina, which includes the municipalities of Barcelona, Sant Adrià, Badalona, and the Generalitat, faces a complex challenge. Many of the current occupants are considered vulnerable, and their removal has drawn support from neighbors and local housing organizations. The public flats are part of a long-delayed plan to rehouse residents from the Venus building, a 244-unit block whose demolition has been discussed for over two decades but never realized.
La Mina, a neighborhood marked by low incomes and persistent social issues, has struggled with drug trafficking and recent outbreaks of violence, including shootings. Local authorities have repeatedly called for urgent intervention, arguing that the scale of the problem exceeds the capacity of a city with fewer than 40,000 residents. The latest transformation plan for the area, presented by the regional government in late 2025, aims to complete the relocation and redevelopment by 2028, with the current evictions forming the first phase of this effort.
For context, public housing in Spain is managed at both municipal and regional levels, with long waiting lists and frequent disputes over allocation. The Venus building in La Mina has become a symbol of stalled urban renewal, and the ongoing evictions highlight the difficulties of balancing social needs, legal requirements, and public order in some of Catalonia’s most deprived neighborhoods.
