GUILLAUME DARRIBAU

“Ciutat Meridiana” is symbolic of what happened in 2008 with the onset of the crisis. I focused on this neighborhood because of it’s economic and social situation. It is representative of many other working class neighborhoods in the country- immigration, neighborhood conflict, marginalization by the state, and cuts in funding for public services have all affected the this community. Specifically, I’ve been documenting the neighborhood’s struggle against mortgage foreclosures. In 2011 there were 58,241 foreclosures nationally, and 13,727 foreclosures in the province of Catalunya. In Ciutat Meridiana there have been more than 300 foreclosures this year and there are scheduled to be another 400 over the course of the year, nearly 20% of the total apartments in the neighborhood. Immigrants have been perhaps the most affected by the crisis. Many worked in construction and were the first to lose their jobs when the mortgage market imploded. They were also disproportionately affected by predatory lending schemes. When the neighborhood was first constructed in the ’60s immigrants from Andalucia were the first to live in Ciutat Meridiana. They bought their apartments for around 1800 euros (300,000 pesetas). During the height of the economic boom banks were lending up to 200,000 euros for apartments of around 60m2. Today many of these apartments that have been foreclosed remain empty, abandoned. Spanish law allows the banks to not only foreclose homes with unpaid mortgages, but also permits the banks to continue prosecuting unpaid debts after foreclosure. Thousands of families find themselves in completely unsustainable situations. Homeless with thousands of euros of debt these families are inable to rent or own any type of property. The consequences of this unsustainable situation are infinite.  In 2010 more than 300 families were dependant on food banks to sustain them.  The social fabric of the neighborhood has been stressed. Relations between neighbors have deteriorated drastically.   Xenophobia is on the rise, and the struggle against foreclosures has no end in sight.