When I reflect on the current housing shortage, I think of our young people who want to become independent without having to leave the place where they grew up, I also think of those working families who seek stability and of those people who, despite having employment and stable income, find enormous difficulties in accessing a home.
The housing shortage has become one of the major concerns of our society, which is precisely why I believe we must face this debate with courage, realism, and a focus on the near future.
A few days ago, information published based on data from the National Statistics Institute (INE), compiled by the Observatory of Social Rights of the Canary Islands (Odesocan), brought to light a reality that deserves special attention: Lanzarote has 19,986 empty homes, 2,374 in our municipality of Teguise. These are quite high figures that force us to ask ourselves the following: are we really taking advantage of the available resources?
For a long time, the debate on access to housing has revolved almost exclusively around the need to build more. However, we cannot ignore another reality, which is that there are properties that could be incorporated into the residential market if we were able to create the right conditions for renting them out.
The first step for this, necessarily, would be to listen to their owners. That is, we cannot expect a person to put their home up for rent if they feel uncertainty about receiving rent or the possibility of recovering the property when legally appropriate. However, providing security to owners does not mean forgetting about those who need housing, but rather finding formulas that allow for a relationship of trust between both parties, with guarantees for those who rent out their properties and for those who need to access a home. I also believe that
incentives are necessary to recover or rehabilitate closed homes and allocate them to the highly demanded long-term residential rental on our island.
Every home that remains closed and could be habitable represents an opportunity that we are letting pass by.
I would like in this regard not to combine the terms of social housing with affordable housing. That is why I emphasize those people who do not necessarily meet the requirements to access certain types of social housing, but who also cannot afford the excessive market prices. This reality demands that we broaden our perspective; it is not enough to think exclusively about publicly owned housing intended for the most vulnerable groups, which remains essential, but it also requires special attention for that part of the population that works, that wants to stay in their municipality, and that needs an opportunity to access housing at a reasonable price.
In Teguise, we also face an added difficulty, which is that the availability of public land to promote new developments is limited. That is why I have met and held various negotiations with the Cabildo de Lanzarote and with private owners, aware that the solution cannot depend on a single administration or a single model. As a result of these, various solutions have emerged, such as, for example, the transformation of certain lands currently intended for tourist use into residential land.
Teguise also has its own identity, a history, an architecture, and a way of understanding coexistence that we must preserve. That is why we cannot approach the residential future as if all towns were the same
or needed the same model of growth. Large housing block developments may make sense in certain environments, but they do not always fit with the scale, architecture, and way of life of our
towns. I advocate for a residential model that integrates into our landscape and respects our idiosyncrasies. We must be able to combine housing needs with responsible urban planning, taking into account public services, infrastructure, mobility, and the quality of life of our neighbors.
I want our young people to be able to develop their life projects in Teguise, for our families not to have to move away from their roots to find a home, for those who work every day to be able to aspire to live with dignity in the municipality where they have decided to build their future.
And above all, that our towns continue to be living spaces, where different generations coexist and where growth does not imply renouncing our identity.
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