The PSOE of Lanzarote, through a press release, has denounced “the alarming level” reached by the housing emergency in Lanzarote. The impossibility of accessing decent housing is pushing many families to live in vans and vehicles adapted as mobile homes, in "a reflection of the extreme precariousness faced by the island's residents due to the lack of housing in the rental market and the high price of buying a home."
María Dolores Corujo, general secretary of the PSOE of Lanzarote and deputy in Congress, has denounced that “this is the reality that Oswaldo Betancort's model is leaving: an island with exorbitant prices, record numbers of tourists and families without access to a roof.”
“It is unacceptable that, while tourism profits reach record figures, more and more people in Lanzarote are forced to live in motorhomes because they cannot afford a roof. How is it possible that on an island with such a profitable tourism model, something as basic as access to housing is not guaranteed? Oswaldo Betancort continues to favor the construction of more hotels while closing his eyes to the reality of those who cannot find a home. We cannot accept that tourism development is synonymous with exclusion for our own people. A moratorium and a brave policy that prioritizes residents over speculative interests is urgently needed,” María Dolores Corujo has denounced.
The PSOE points out that in the last four years, "the average selling price of housing in Lanzarote has increased by 40%, from 1,878 to 2,655 euros per square meter. Meanwhile, the last social housing promotion on the island dates back to 1994, and the response of the island government of Coalición Canaria and PP has been to vote against the tourism moratorium and be unable to promote public housing."
“The problem is not that they cannot, it is that they do not want to. The only public housing that will be built in Lanzarote is the one projected by the socialist government,” Corujo stressed.
The problem is aggravated by the expansion of vacation rentals, which has grown by 82.5% in just six months, between June and December 2024, after the Government of CC and PP in the Canary Islands caused a call effect with the announcement of the vacation rental law. As La Voz already advanced, Lanzarote already has more than 100,000 tourist places and is close to 10,000 vacation rentals. This phenomenon, added to the arrival of more than 3.2 million tourists in the last year, is expelling families from access to decent housing.
“The Cabildo of Lanzarote should be putting solutions to the housing crisis, but Oswaldo Betancort and his team are too busy with parties, trips and meals paid for with public money. They are experts in that,” the socialist leader criticized.
The PSOE of Lanzarote has demanded that Oswaldo Betancort "stop looking the other way and adopt urgent measures, including a tourism moratorium and investment in public housing to stop the housing collapse that the island is suffering."
