The new State Law for the Right to living placewhich is being processed in the Congress of Deputies, will prevent more than 5,000 Canarian families residing in rented social housing from accessing their property, as it is stipulated in the Canarian law, and will suppose a “real chaos” in the management of the public park in the Archipelago. This was reported on Monday, April 18 Canarian Coalition (CC) that positions itself against this new regulation considering that it violates the Statute of Autonomy. The nationalist deputy in the Lower House, Ana Oramas, announced that she will present a total of 23 amendments to suppress the articles of the bill, promoted by the central government, because they “attack the power of the Canary Islands to define and develop a policy of own housing and adapted to its territorial singularity as an Archipelago and to the measure of the true needs of the canaries”.
Oramas stressed that this regulation “does not specify or provide effective solutions to the problem of homelessness”, but neither does it promote mechanisms that encourage the promotion and construction of new buildings that expand the current public park, already scarce. In addition, he insisted that “it protects the occupation”, a problem that in the Canary Islands is present even in the promotions promoted by the administrations, and includes measures such as the regulation of rental prices that “all the experts say that it will mean the withdrawal market housing”.
According to the nationalists, One of the most damaging aspects included in the new regulation in the case of the Canary Islands is the impossibility of public housing passing into private hands something that, as explained by the regional deputy Socorro Beato, “will prevent people who have been renting protected housing for years from accessing the property.” A circumstance that “has always favored the Canary Islands” and will be a “hard blow” for many families who live in neighborhoods such as San Pío, Cuesta Piedra, Santa Clara, La Verdellada, Las Mantecas, Valle Colino, Valle Vinagre, Bajamar, Geneto and San Matthias.
Juan José Martínez, delegate councilor for Housing in the City Hall of Santa Cruzspecified that 1,500 families will be affected in the capital of Tenerife alone who reside in a house in the municipal park. “Neighbors who had the prospect of accessing these properties and now the Government of Spain annihilates their dreams,” she stressed.
Jonathan Domínguez, councilor of the Canarian Coalition in the Municipality of La Lagunaadded that the situation in the municipality is “dramatic” since “nearly 2,000 families who have rental homes will see their rights diminished“, since as he explained “these homes were awarded with a regulation that allowed them to access their property after a series of years”. A step that, according to what he considered, “can mean for them to get out of a situation of vulnerability”.
Among those affected are the residents of the first phase of Las Chumberas. “A bloody case since the new houses that are being built in this area will not be able to pass into the hands of their legitimate owners with this new law,” he insisted.
For her part, Beato explained that this bill “contains a series of general guidelines on housing policy that represent a clear leadership of the actions of the autonomous communities and local corporations, contravening article 148.1.3º CE, which attributes competence in housing matters to the communities”. “It is these and not the State that can develop their own policy, including the encouragement and promotion of housing construction , which are fundamentally the type of public actions in which housing policy is specified”, he recalled.
So, Canarian Coalition will promote a cascade of motions against the new state Housing regulations in councils and town halls and will also present a Proposal Not of Law (PNL) in the Parliament of the Canary Islands to urge the regional government “to comply with Canarian law by favoring access to property for tenants.”
