Between 2008 and 2022, expenses associated with housing and supplies on the islands increased by 29.8%, while disposable income did so by 18.5%. This 11-point differential was double the Spanish average.
And it continues to expand. In the last year alone, the cost to buy a home in Lanzarote has risen by 13.2% on average, while rents, for example in Arrecife, are 17.4% more expensive than a year ago.
This situation would not be so serious if the public administrations of the archipelago had protected more housing in recent decades and had better managed what they have. This is one of the main conclusions that can be drawn from the report 'Housing versus population in the Canary Islands, a pending challenge', published this year by the College of Economists of Las Palmas.
"If protection homes had been built in the archipelago at levels around the national average, there would currently be many more protection homes that would more than cover current applicants,” the report states.
Only 4.7% (14,003 homes) of the nearly 300,000 homes built between 2000 and 2022 were officially protected in the Canary Islands, compared to 12.3% of the 6.7 million homes built in the country as a whole.
If the Canary Islands had protected the same percentage of homes as the rest of the country, the number of protected homes in the archipelago would have amounted to 36,546.
Something that could also have benefited developers and builders, since a good number of freely promoted homes were not sold. The stock of unsold new homes in the Canary Islands reached 29,987 units in 2022, according to the report by the College of Economists.
More than 2,000 families in Lanzarote have been waiting for years for the allocation of a protected home
Currently, according to the Government of the Canary Islands, there are 25,269 families waiting for an officially protected home. In Lanzarote, there are 2,102 people registered in the Public Registry of Applicants for Protected Housing.
“As of November 2023, the public housing stock consists of 14,645 registered with the Canarian Housing Institute (ICAVI) and 6,050 with the public company VISOCAN, which represents a total of 20,695 homes”, according to the report by the College of Economists, which has not been able to include municipal ones due to lack of data.
The report is devastating regarding the work of public administrations in this regard: “Although public authorities increasingly insist on the need to facilitate access to housing at affordable prices for people with difficulties, we are facing a problem that they themselves have been generating over time.”
The study highlights the lack of “diligence in management for the promotion of public and/or protected housing and other aid to young people and vulnerable groups, even when they have sufficient economic resources for it.”
These inefficiencies “are paid for by individuals -small and medium-sized ones- with restrictions on the rental price of their homes in the free market in stressed areas -still pending declaration- and by greater protection for the tenant against evictions, which results in defenselessness for landlords,” the study adds.
In the specific case of protected housing, the report highlights that between 2020 and 2022, due to the “limited resolution of files”, only 112 homes were allocated in all of the islands.
Of course, the housing emergency in the Canary Islands does not seem to be due to a lack of housing built. The housing stock increased between 2011 and 2021 above population growth.
47,755 homes were built, compared to an increase in inhabitants estimated at 46,175, which in percentage terms represents an increase of 4.6% and 2.2%, respectively, although it is true that in the case of Lanzarote the population increase amounted to 8.7%.