The City Council of La Laguna asks the State, the Autonomous Community and the Cabildo, as well as the banking entities, a greater degree of commitment to tackle the “housing emergency” suffered by the Canary Islands, through the application of 13 measures that result in a increase in housing for social use. Through a motion that will be taken to plenary today, the local government team (PSOE, Unidas se can and Avante) calls for action to increase human and accommodation resources aimed at meeting existing demand.
In the proposal, which arises as a result of an initiative promoted by the social entities affected and collected by the Government group, the collaboration of all the agents involved is requested to face “the needs of the population that has the most difficulties in accessing this basic good, establishing as a priority the improvements and the urgent expansion of the public park ”.
For its growth, in addition, the central government is required to cede to the island administrations the homes that the Company for the Management of Assets from Bank Restructuring has in the regional territory, and does the same with the banking entities.
The Canarian Executive is also urged to “prioritize the purchase and rehabilitation” of real estate for the same purpose and “to improve management, as well as to have human and technical resources, to reinforce community intervention in the public parks of the Instituto Canario de la Housing or Visocan ”. On the other hand, he asks the Government and the Cabildo to start up “control services to promote the proper use of these buildings.”
In addition, administrations are required to give up land to promote new construction and defend the reduction in the price of rents, the implementation of an indefinite moratorium on evictions and the use of empty homes. The City Council also undertakes “to continue working to strengthen economic actions” in this area and to promote the study of the effect of vacation rentals in the municipality.
The text recalls that the existing public social housing stock in the Islands has been “frozen for more than a decade”, although the current plan contemplates the execution of 169 protected homes in La Laguna. Likewise, it is detailed that the emergency housing resources of the Consistory attended 153 evicted or homeless people in 2020.