The eviction has ceased to be a distant threat for a couple from Alcoletge. It has been pursuing them for twelve years. It is not a residual case of the past crisis or a collateral victim of the housing bubble: it is proof that the economic recovery does not reach those who fulfill their obligations. They have paid 70,000 euros of their mortgage and, to this day, the debt does not amortize. The last proposal they have received is devastating: to remain debt-free and houseless. Their only explanation summarizes the tragedy: “My only crime has been to work and not be paid.” Meanwhile, in Lleida, the housing map published on Friday confirms that the purchase offer multiplies by fourteen the rental one and that only fifteen flats cost less than 700 euros a month. Both realities prove that there is no real way out for the working class.

A bill that does not go down

Segre published on Friday the case of a couple from Alcoletge that embodies the failure of mortgage protection. For twelve years, the eviction procedure has been hovering over their home. Twelve years of uncertainty, of judicial letters, of sleepless nights and of negotiations that lead nowhere. In that time, they have paid 70,000 euros. The figure is not insignificant: it is equivalent to years of salary, of sacrifice, of renunciations and of accounts adjusted to the millimeter. However, the outstanding capital does not decrease. In other words, the effort does not count.

The creditor entity does not propose a restructuring that allows them to stay; it proposes a “solution” in which they come out clean of debt but also evicted. Staying on the street is not an accident of the process: it is the objective of the agreement. In mortgage jargon, this is known as dación en pago, a mechanism that, in theory, serves to cancel the debt by handing over the home. In practice, for this family, it means twelve years of payments to the dumpster and a door closed forever.

This is not a problem of voluntary default. The affected person explains without victimism or slogans: “My only crime has been to work and not be paid.” The phrase should discomfort any administration that presumes to be a shield society. It does not ask for privilege: it asks for the effort to serve for something, for paying not to be a dead end. The message is brutal. In this system, the compliant debtor can end up evicted just like the professional defaulter. Equality before the law requires distinguishing between someone who cannot continue paying from someone who does not want to. Here, both receive the same sentence: the door of the street.

Lleida, a city where renting is a luxury

On the same day, Segre published the housing map in Lleida city and debunked any complacent discourse. The offer of houses for sale multiplies by fourteen the rental one. The main real estate websites show little more than half a hundred of flats for rent in the capital. Of them, only fifteen cost less than 700 euros a month. The newspaper’s editorial sums it up without beating around the bush: “Few flats and very expensive in Lleida.”

These numbers are not abstract for a family like the one from Alcoletge. If they eventually lose their home, the market offers them two options. The first one, buying, is something impossible without a mortgage and savings, and even more so if they have just come out of an execution procedure. The second one, renting, is a chimera in their price range. Fifteen flats for less than 700 euros are not a real alternative for those who have lost everything: they are a speed contest in which the majority is left out.

The administration has public aids, subsidies and municipal plans, but the daily reality of the citizen is reduced to a simple equation: there is no accessible housing. The theory of official protection crashes against the real scarcity. The promise that nobody will be left behind turns into a campaign slogan when fifteen flats have to attend to a unsatisfied demand of households with difficulties. Young people, single-parent families and workers with modest salaries share the same fate: the impossibility of finding a decent roof at a reasonable price.

The trap of moratoriums

The couple from Alcoletge is not a victim of a non-existent law, but of laws that exist but do not solve the problem. For years, governments have announced moratoriums, decrees and mediation lines to avoid evictions. In official communiqués, everything sounds reasonable: negotiating with the bank, restructuring debts, facilitating negotiated exits. On the citizen’s table, however, the result is another: a debt that does not go down, an offer that consists of losing the home and a judicial procedure that lasts for a decade.

The problem is not the absence of paper: it is the absence of effect. The public administration is very skilled at publicizing measures; what it does not achieve is for those measures to reach those who need them before the eviction is executed. Meanwhile, the mortgage procedure advances with the inertia of a train. Every payment that does not reduce capital, every recourse, every postponement, prolongs the agony without changing the outcome. Progressive bureaucracy does not save households; it packages the misfortune into files.

Partial solutions mainly serve to allow politicians to take the photo. A moratorium that freezes the eviction for months does not solve the debt; a mediation that proposes handing over the home does not save the affected person; a subsidy does not compensate for years of useless payments. What is sold as social protection ends up being makeup for a procedure that, in the end, remains intact.

The responsibility of the political class

Housing is a shared competence, but the responsibility lies with all those who occupy a seat. In Catalonia, it has been proven time and time again the capacity of the Parliament to pass symbolic laws, grandiloquent resolutions and emergency decrees when it suits them. However, when it comes to ensuring that a family from Alcoletge does not end up on the street after paying 70,000 euros, the party interest dilutes. Concrete solutions - a real dation in payment, public acquisition of housing for social renting, the obligation to restructure compliant debts - always run into the same wall: short-term party politics.

Catalan independence has spent years building narratives about alleged oppression, while too many Catalans suffer from a more tangible oppression: the impossibility of paying for housing, the lack of alternatives and the feeling that institutions are looking the other way. One does not have to choose between defending identity and defending the citizens’ roof. But the order of priorities reflects where the true interests of the political class lie. In Lleida, fifteen flats for less than 700 euros are not just a statistical detail; they are proof that promises stay on the agenda.

Responsible management of the public requires less discourse and more results. While parties compete for the banner, affected people compete for flats, less mediation committees and more protected families, less political gestures and more respect for the compliant. The next eviction is not written yet. But if institutions continue to act as spectators, it will soon arrive. And then it will not be worth looking for excuses: the blame will be on those who, having the key, preferred to look the other way.