After three gruelling years fighting mass evictions, Josep Torrent and his neighbours finally got some respite in February. Barcelona City Council and housing association Hàbitat3 announced that they would buy their building from speculators Lioness Investments, bringing Josep ‘a little bit of hope’.
In 2021, soon after they bought Casa Orsola, the iconic modernist building in Barcelona’s Eixample district where Josep lives, Lioness announced they wouldn’t renew the fixed-term leases among the 27 apartments. It’s a run-of-the-mill formula: a speculator buys property, allows leases to expire, evicts, renovates and re-lets at higher prices.
