The president of the Association Platform for People Affected by Mortgages of the Canary Islands, Kiko Santana, spoke this Tuesday on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero to explain the situation after the postponement of the eviction of a hundred families in Playa Blanca. Santana has assured that this complex is "from a vulture fund, from a financial entity like many that buy properties in the Canary Islands that are worth 100,000 euros and buy them for 10,000 euros."
"They are plundering the Canary Islands and even more so with the emergency situation in which housing finds itself," Santana added.
"We have small children, elderly people, there are absolutely all kinds of people who also work but whose salary is not enough to pay a rent as things are in Lanzarote," Santana added in his radio intervention.
Kiko Santana pointed out that "it was not an official notification" that alerted these 100 families that they had to leave the homes they have been occupying, in some cases, for up to six years. "They did not leave a document to each neighbor informing them that the eviction was going to take place, so the first thing we indicated to the neighbors is that they go to the Court and ask each one about their procedure and see the situation they were going to find themselves in," explained the president of the Association Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (AHINOR) in the morning show Buenos días, Lanzarote.
"They didn't tell them individually, but a little to everyone," Kiko Santana attests.
"Whoever is requiring the home must certify that they have tried to reconcile with the offenders who prove that they are vulnerable and that essential requirement was not met," explained the president of this association for the right to housing. Santana added that this requirement arises from a new law, approved in May of this year, and that its non-compliance implies the filing of the executions of the evictions. From the Association and in collaboration with the public defenders and the dean of the Bar Association, a complaint was filed with the Judicial Power in the Dean's Office to stop the eviction.
This paralysis of the eviction is only for two months. "This is anguish, the trial will come out on Friday," he assured during the program. He also pointed out that the Government of the Canary Islands has enough time to find a housing alternative. "This new law contemplates it, the Canary Islands has a housing plan and it must be used because that is what the law says," he remarked, "these people have to be found a housing alternative yes or yes, whether it is a hotel or wherever it is."
The only certainty that these families have is that they will have to leave the complex, already in the hands of a vulture fund. "The circumstance is very complicated, in Lanzarote we have to live what we are living, there is no housing. In Yaiza there are two chalets for 3,500 euros each monthly," he highlighted.
"These families are not the hippie squatters that we are used to seeing in the 80s and 90s. People with terminal illnesses, children in school, with all the disaster that this entails," he pointed out.
A housing plan that does not arrive
The housing situation in the Canary Islands and in particular in Lanzarote is already unsustainable for the population that cannot access a flat for sale or rent. "The person who earns 1,500 euros and is asked for 1,700 euros to pay for a home, are also housing applicants and we are not counting on them. A plumber, a waiter or a bricklayer, how can they be paying those large and high rental prices?" he asked on the air.
Kiko Santana has taken advantage of his intervention to talk about the Canary Islands Housing Plan. In this case, he highlights that only 5,900 houses will be built from now until 2025, while there have been 2,000 evictions in the Canary Islands in the year of fewer evictions.
Likewise, the president of AHINOR has pointed out the problem with homes in the hands of banks and vulture funds that remain empty and has proposed increasing taxes on large housing holders who keep them empty and that these taxes be increased over the years. "When a bank has a home in a residential building, they are the large debtors of the communities and municipalities and that people are not required as the rest," he specified, "they do what they want and pay when they want."
