The Socialist Municipal Group in the Tinajo City Council has publicly denounced the rejection of its motion to urge the Government of the Canary Islands to apply the state Law for the Right to Housing in an urgent and decisive manner, a regulation that has already proven its effectiveness where it has been implemented and that offers key tools to combat the serious housing emergency that the Canary Islands and municipalities like Tinajo are experiencing.
The socialist councilor Begoña Hernández deeply regrets that the local government group has voted against a proposal that "seeks to protect families and guarantee access to a basic right such as housing." "Rejecting this motion is not only irresponsible, it is a clear stance: they have decided to side with large property owners and investment funds, and turn their backs on the social majority," she denounced.
The PSOE reminds that the Law for the Right to Housing allows declaring stressed areas, limiting rental prices, expanding the public housing stock, and applying tax benefits to collaborating owners. In fact, in more than 140 Spanish municipalities, rents have already decreased by 3.7% thanks to its implementation.
The motion also included alarming data: the Canary Islands is one of the autonomous communities with the highest percentage of population in rental housing —almost 30%—, with salaries among the lowest in the country and more than a third of the population at risk of poverty. All of this, in a context of strong real estate pressure and speculation, with a continuous growth in the purchase of homes by large foreign investors.
"The housing drama is not a coincidence, it is the result of specific political decisions. And today, in Tinajo, the government group has shown that it does not have the slightest intention of stopping this bleeding," said Hernández.
The socialist motion proposed two key agreements: to demand that the Government of the Canary Islands immediately deploy all the mechanisms of the state Law and that it urgently and plannedly increase the stock of public and affordable housing, establishing concrete objectives and execution deadlines.
"The right to housing is protected in the Constitution. What the Tinajo government group has done today is a betrayal of that right. Tinajo and the Canary Islands need solutions, not more excuses or blockades," concluded the socialist councilor.
