Teacher's eviction stalled after Barcelona residents protest tourism, gentrification

By Nacho Doce

BARCELONA (Reuters) - A teacher who has become a symbol of Spain's housing crisis has won a temporary stay of eviction from his rented Barcelona apartment after protests by residents against gentrification and over-tourism in the country's second city.

Josep Torrent, 49, who has lived in the same apartment for more than two decades, was among tenants who were told their rental contracts would not be renewed after private investors Lioness Investments acquired the Art Nouveau Casa Orsola building in 2020.

His case illustrates the rental and housing crisis affecting Barcelona and wider Spain, an increasingly serious problem for the socialist-led government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his fragile minority government.

Spain is struggling to balance its dependence on tourism with citizens' concerns over unaffordably high rents due to gentrification and landlords seeking more lucrative tourist rentals, especially in urban and coastal areas.

There is also a historic under-supply of housing, with just 90,000 new houses and apartments built a year amid a surge in migration and record levels of tourism adding to locals starting their own households.

Torrent's eviction was postponed until Feb. 4 after hundreds of protesters ringed the building bearing a banner reading: "They will not evict us. Defend Casa Orsola."

Earlier in the week, he told El Pais newspaper he had continued to pay his rent every month "even when the landlord didn't want to collect."

"Investors buy, expel (tenants) and get rich, they have tax cuts, they do not build or create jobs, they create wealth for themselves and distribute misery," he told el Pais.

Lioness Investments told Reuters it was not an investment fund but a limited partnership.

In a statement, it added that landlords face legal insecurity, aggravated by slow legal proceedings, which makes it easier for tenants to refuse to leave their homes when their contracts expire.

Mayte Jove, an 80-year-old local resident, told Reuters that tourist apartments were crowding out locals. "It's not possible for young people who are studying or have finished university to move out of their parents' homes," she said.

(Writing by Emma Pinedo; additional reporting by Joan Faus and Corina Pons, editing by Aislinn Laing, William Maclean)