\n\t\t\t\t\tSocial housing scheme launched in one of Spain’s most popular cities for UK visitors\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n
BARCELONA \u2013 The Catalan capital has launched a plan to solve a housing crisis that has helped drive a spate of protests against overtourism across Spain<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the country\u2019s most popular destinations for British tourists, Barcelona was the scene of violent demonstrations in June<\/a> against \u201ctouristification\u201d.<\/p>\n Now, an alliance of banks, investors, residents, architects and local authorities are turning empty flats into 1,300 units of social housing.<\/p>\n This kind of housing association has not been found before in Spain, unlike other countries such as the UK.<\/p>\n New FeatureIn ShortQuick Stories. Same trusted journalism.<\/p>\n Casa Bloc, an apartment block in Sant Andreu, a working-class area far from Barcelona<\/a>\u2018s tourist trail, has already provided 17 much-needed homes to some of the poorest people in the city.<\/p>\n The one- or two-bedroom apartments cost between \u20ac280-\u20ac320 (\u00a3242\u2013\u00a3277) per month. Similar properties on the open market cost at least \u20ac600 (\u00a3519) per month, and often more than \u20ac1,000 (\u00a3865).<\/p>\n A Casa Bloc tenant, who did not want to disclose her name, told The i Paper she was grateful for the home. \u201cWhen you are in such a vulnerable position, you start to think you don\u2019t deserve anything. You feel completely alone and that you will never get out of that well \u2013 but you can,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Natalia Mart\u00ednez, director of alliances and communication at non-profit Fundaci\u00f3 Habitat 3, said the increase in the number of holiday apartments was a sign of how rental costs had outstripped salaries.<\/p>\n \u201c[Tourism] is a link in the chain that is complicated,\u201d she told The i Paper. \u201cWe tend to think that tourism and temporary housing is the problem. My view is that they are a symptom of a bigger problem, which is we don\u2019t have enough social housing.\u201d<\/p>\n Ainara Fern\u00e1ndez, of the Institute for Human Rights and Business, a think tank and UK-based charity, said the growing protests in the region underscored the issue.<\/p>\n \u201cSocial tensions are high, so much so that we\u2019re seeing housing protests for the first time in Catalonia. However, an alternative housing system is emerging that deserves greater attention,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The Canary Islands have seen simliar protests. Brian Harrison, general secretary of Salvar La Tejita, a protest group in the archipelago said it had some housing associations but \u201cuntil the tens of thousands of properties held by banks or used as unlicensed holiday rentals are allocated to the housing\u00a0market, these associations have very limited resources to work with\u201d.<\/p>\n Spain needs to increase its social housing stock \u2013 which accounts for 3 per cent of all homes \u2013 to bring it closer to the European average of 8 per cent, according to Eurostat figures.<\/p>\n In June, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez offered to invest \u20ac4bn to build more housing, and plug a deficit in the number of homes estimated at 450,000 by the Bank of Spain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social housing scheme launched in one of Spain’s most popular cities for UK visitors BARCELONA \u2013 The Catalan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[199,7706,2000,299,6334,2863,104,5006],"class_list":{"0":"post-426741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-barcelona","9":"tag-catalonia","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-housing-crisis","13":"tag-overtourism","14":"tag-spain","15":"tag-tourism"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}