Hundreds of housing campaigners are expected to march through Sevilla on Friday night after Congress rejected both of the government’s emergency housing decrees.
The demonstration will leave Las Setas de la Encarnacion at 7pm and continue through the city to the Palacio de San Telmo, the headquarters of the Andalucian government.
It comes after more than 300 people spent a fourth night at the protest camp established beneath the Metropol Parasol, where more than 100 tents have now been erected.
Photos taken by the Spanish Eye show dozens of tents sprawled out in the tourist hotspot with placards reading: ‘Your Airbnb was our home’ and ‘all landlords are b****rds’.
Other signs read: ‘Being a landlord is not a job’, and ‘I want to be a mother, but I live with my mother.’
Organisers decided during a Friday morning assembly to maintain the occupation indefinitely.
‘The decrees are not enough’
Protesters said the demonstration would target Spain’s system of property speculation and landlords profiting from the housing crisis.
The housing decrees would have introduced stronger protections against eviction, restrictions affecting investment funds and tourist properties, tighter regulation of temporary and room rentals and automatic extensions for certain tenancy agreements.
The government drafted the emergency measures amid growing public anger over housing costs and the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen from the Madrid home where she had lived for more than 70 years.
Although an agreement has since allowed her to return, protest camps have continued in Madrid, Sevilla, Malaga and other Spanish cities.
Campaigners are demanding an end to evictions, indefinite rental contracts and stronger measures to reduce housing costs.
Weekend of demonstrations in Sevilla
Friday’s housing march will begin a weekend of separate demonstrations in the Andalucian capital.
A protest described by organisers as a mobilisation ‘against fascism’ will leave the Banco de España at 7pm on Saturday.
Campaigners said it would oppose anti-immigration rhetoric linking migrants to Spain’s housing crisis and the activities of private eviction groups.
A demonstration in support of Palestine is also scheduled for noon on Sunday at Puerta Jerez.
An open housing assembly will then take place at 8pm on Monday outside a residential building in Calle Concejal Jimenez Becerril.
Organisers claim the block has been purchased by an investment fund and that its tenants are facing rent increases.
