Access to housing is one of the main problems suffered by the Canarian population. In the last five years, the price of rent has increased by 50%. Meanwhile, interest rates for accessing a mortgage have skyrocketed. Only the complaints of the islanders regarding Dependency and Disability are ahead.
The lack of a house to reside in forces citizens to look for a plan B. Among them, residence in caves, in containers and "other unhealthy stays". This is stated by the Deputy of the Common Rafael Yanes.
The Deputation points out in an extraordinary report to which La Voz has had access that it has processed more than a hundred cases a year in which the majority of citizens were forced to end up on the street. Among other points, this is due to a latent deficit and is "the absence of a sufficient public housing stock".
In this line, he assures that the "very diverse" problems of access to housing in the Archipelago are linked to the absence of a sufficient number of free homes in the market, both public and private for sale or rent.
Almost a hundred housing applications in the face of evictions
The year 2020, remembered for the quarantine caused by the coronavirus pandemic, meant a temporary halt in evictions. The evictions, which had been the main concern of the Canarians before the Deputy of the Common, disappeared during that year. However, in 2021 and 2022, with evictions already resumed, 96 applications were submitted to the Deputation in Lanzarote alone to stop an eviction or find a home immediately in the face of an imminent eviction.
The Canarias ProHogar agreement was created to respond to these problems. In this case, it serves families who are or are about to suffer an eviction from their home. In this case, the Canarian Housing Institute (ICAVI) attended to ten applications for emergency housing from citizens of Lanzarote, four in 2020; three in 2021; and another in 2022.
However, the ICAVI only has 479 homes in Lanzarote. Most of these are concentrated in Arrecife (404), followed by Tías (73) and Yaiza (two). Thus, Haría, Teguise, Tinajo and San Bartolomé do not have accommodation from this public institution available for cases of extreme need.
Three of the homes assigned during the year 2020 were in Arrecife, and two of them came from the so-called bad bank or Sareb, as well as the remaining one that was owned by CaixaBank. Meanwhile, the fourth assignment was received by a family from Arrecife who moved to the municipality of Antigua in Fuerteventura.
During 2021, another family from Arrecife was relocated to a home in Teguise, owned by Sareb. While three families from Lanzarote, from Yaiza, Arrecife and Teguise, were relocated to Visocan homes in Puerto del Rosario.
In 2022, a family from Arrecife was relocated to another home in the conejero municipality owned until then by CaixaBank.
No solution to the problem of empty homes
In the Extraordinary report on the housing situation in the Canary Islands from a social perspective, the Deputy of the Common reflects that Tías is the Spanish municipality with more than 10,000 inhabitants that has more empty homes. In total, 48%. A trend that is maintained in the rest of the Archipelago, where there were 9.7 empty homes for every 100 inhabitants at the end of 2021.
Programs have been launched from the different institutions to try to incorporate empty homes into the rental market. However, none of the initiatives has been successful. However, applications throughout the Archipelago exceed 2,150 as of July 2023.
