The Socialist Parliamentary Group is taking to the plenary session next week a non-law proposition urging the Government of the Canary Islands to acquire already built homes, through the Canary Islands Housing Institute, with the aim of incorporating a thousand new ones into the public park in order to respond to the existing demand through public promotion immediately.
The president of the PSOE in the Chamber, Patricia Hernández, explains that for the materialization of the proposal, the regional Executive is asked to provide the Canary Islands Housing Institute with the human resources and funding of no less than 70 million euros. The deputy explains that these are homes whose acquisition by the regional administration is more economical and that, in addition, would be available to citizens almost immediately.
She recalls that the Canary Islands has one of the highest unemployment rates in the State, with youth unemployment of 43.3 percent in those under 25 years of age, one of the highest in the European Union. "The archipelago has the lowest salaries in the entire State and temporary employment has extended to the majority of jobs created in the last five years," she explains.
Hernández indicates that in this scenario, access to housing presents multiple difficulties for large groups of the population "who, in the best of cases, see their expectations of personal independence frustrated and, in the most painful cases, involve situations of social exclusion for those affected."
The Canary Islands Housing Institute itself, she continues, puts the number of public housing applicants in the islands at 14,000 through this body. Therefore, the PSOE deputy considers a decisive commitment from public authorities to develop effective housing policies, whether in terms of rent or sale. "It is necessary to increase the public housing stock as a tool that allows families to access housing appropriate to their needs at a price they can afford," she insists.
Patricia Hernández remarks that after the bursting of the real estate bubble, there is a large amount of empty housing on the islands as a result of credit foreclosures to private developers accumulated by financial institutions, their real estate subsidiaries or asset management entities that, depending on their location, size or even the volume of housing to be acquired, have prices ranging between 25,000 and 70,000 euros.
She adds that to the economic advantages that the acquisition of part of these homes by the Canary Islands Housing Institute would imply for their subsequent public promotion, is added the greater speed that this operation would mean for potential beneficiaries, in the sense that they would be available to citizens immediately.
In addition, there are the advantages that the surplus of housing is released and mobilized in favor of citizens, as well as the location of these properties that, to a large extent, accumulate in the areas of greatest population and, therefore, of greatest demand.
