The spokesperson for the Gomera Socialist Group Parliamentary Group highlights that the price of housing rentals has grown much faster than that of rent.
The spokesperson for the Gomera Socialist Group Parliamentary Group (ASG), Casimiro Curbelo, proposed this Monday, the 6th, to promote economic investment from the Canarian public administrations to favor the construction and rehabilitation of public housing in the Archipelago, in addition to promoting a social rental plan.
“This measure would not only allow the institutions to reactivate economic activity, especially the construction sector, which was greatly affected by the crisis, but also generate an economy in our Islands,” clarified the regional deputy. "But in addition, if we promote initiatives in this regard, we also favor conditions so that the Canary Islands, especially those most vulnerable groups, have decent housing, either through the option of purchase or social rental," he clarified.
In Curbelo's opinion, "in the current situation of economic crisis that we face, due to the consequences derived from the pandemic due to Covid-19, public administrations must take a step forward and lead investment, because the private sector will have more difficulties in doing so; therefore, it is essential to commit to public investment in infrastructure, including the housing stock."
In this sense, the ASG spokesperson in the regional Chamber defended the relevance of public housing as an essential element to help family units and social well-being. “Access to decent housing is one of the guiding principles of our Constitution,” he recalled. Likewise, he encouraged the Canary Islands Government to rely on the management of the public company Social Housing and Infrastructure of the Canary Islands (Visocan) to carry out a set of actions along these lines.
In addition, Curbelo emphasized that, according to data from the Bank of Spain, in 2018 Canarians dedicated on average more than 37% of their annual income to renting a home, a percentage that has been growing, mainly due to the fact that rental prices have increased faster than rents, which reflects the enormous effort made by citizens in the Archipelago to meet rental costs. “Between 2015 and 2018, while the average income of a citizen on the Islands grew by almost 6%, the price of housing rental increased by more than 41.7%,” he pointed out.
Evictions
“Another fact that justifies the need to promote actions focused on putting social housing on the market is the number of evictions, since although it is true that in the Canary Islands this figure has been decreasing over the years, the ratio per 10,000 inhabitants is still above the national average, both in the case of non-payment of mortgages and non-payment of rent,” he assured. “This is one of the direct consequences derived from the enormous effort that citizens make in paying rent, costs that on many occasions they cannot afford,” he added.
