The accommodation sector, like others closely linked to tourism, such as restaurants, is not finding employees. They have incomplete templates. The paradox arises that, in the South, not everyone can afford to work. To work and live at the same time, if you take into account that the few rentals there are exceed 700 euros. And it’s not that there is much. Because there aren’t any, there aren’t even rooms to share.
This has caused illegal “squatters” of land, both public and private, to multiply and these lands to suffer two phenomena: shanty towns and motorhomes and vans linked to employees of the tourism sector. Others are more serious from a legal point of view, such as the reparceling of rural land. Although that is another story.
In a short route through the municipalities of Arona and Adeje, up to five illegal shanty settlements are located: spaces on the coast of the latter, between El Puertito and Playa Paraíso; the Troya ravine, on the border of the two; El Rincón de Los Cristianos and the valuable land of the partial plan of El Mojón, which corresponds to Arona.
“For years we have raised the alarm regarding problems with access to housing and street situations in Tenerife, especially in areas such as the Southern Region,” explains José Antonio Díez Dávila, coordinator of Mobile Street Care Units (UMAC). ) from Cáritas Diocesana de Tenerife, who emphasizes that, “however, now the problem goes further and is spreading to other layers of society, to people who are not in a situation of social exclusion.”
Another side of the same coin is the marginalization of certain areas, where people not only “squat” private land, but also live in places built with waste that do not have the minimum habitable conditions. This is what is happening with the area called El Rincón de Los Cristianos. There are buildings of all kinds and many motorhomes or vans. The constructions are on private land that has had to initiate launch processes through judicial means to recover land that, they hope, one day, will become projects.
“That facilitate investment in the area”
“We have had to carry out precarious evictions on the plots we have in that area. We have three of the five that we own occupied. I was recently in one and there was already a community of between fifteen and twenty booths,” explains Miguel Villarroya, general director of Spring Hoteles, a chain that has three establishments in Los Cristianos and Playa de las Américas, all in Arona.
“What we can ask of the city councils is to unblock and facilitate investment in places like El Rincón, whose situation is eroding our image as a destination and the perception of security in those who visit us. If they did, at least we could launch projects that will ensure that the tourist area is not so deteriorated,” adds this hotel manager.
The CEO of Spring emphasizes that “in our case, as we are a company, what we do is wait for the Court’s decision, which is slow, but what prospects do other owners in the area have?” he asks.
Officials from the neighborhood association, however, did not comment on the deteriorating situation in this area when asked by this newspaper.
The data published at the time by Cáritas indicated that in the main municipalities of the South there are 771 homeless people, the majority in Arona (441), Adeje (166) and Granadilla de Abona (128). However, this is the most extreme and visible situation. Below it there is another reality, which could reach 14% of the total: that of those who, without having a home, do have a work contract.
What’s more, the “luckiest” in this ranking are far from the radar of social services, since they have used part of their income to buy a van in which to spend the night and do some basic tasks, before and after work. Many times they eat, change and shower in the places that employ them.
It is not beginning to be strange, either, that qualified workers, who obtain a health or educational place in the South, give it up. The Cáritas coordinator himself gives an example of a close case “of someone who worked with us, whose rent was not renewed and the only thing he found was a garage, so he ended up leaving the job.”
“We must take into account – he insists – that previously highly vulnerable people lived like this and now people with jobs and what they do is buy a tent or a van, people who have money to pay, for example, for a campsite.”
“We have been warning for a long time,” he explains. Remembering that, since the nineties, neoliberal deregulation has occurred and the construction of social or affordable housing has ceased to be planned. On the contrary, tourist rentals are normalized. It is something that is happening throughout Europe, even in countries like Holland, which had up to 30% public housing. We must not forget that the European Union is demanding that Spain build more than a million homes,” she adds.
All of this occurs in a context in which tourism and the wealth it generates increase, but the convergence of the Canary Islands or the income of the inhabitants of the Islands does not.
There was a time when the growth in the number of tourists served as a direct incentive to the increase in wealth and the convergence of the Canary Islands with respect to the Spanish average. But that’s no longer true. If in 2000, the per capita income of the Islands was 98% of that of Spain, twenty years later, this had dropped to 72%. The Canarians are poorer than the average of the rest of the country’s citizens, a reality. And yet, the GDP of the Canary Islands has grown a lot, spurred by a growing number of tourists, among other factors. But it is not enough to improve the living conditions of residents.