SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 2 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, accompanied by the Minister of Public Works, Transport and Housing, Sebastián Franquis, has verified today, Wednesday, how the latest urbanization and installation work is being carried out on a hundred modular homes acquired by the Government of the Canary Islands. to serve palm families who lost their homes due to the volcanic eruption.
The head of the Canarian Executive told the media that, despite the difficulties in supplying materials, 80 homes will be delivered, in addition to the 140 already in use by affected people, “with which the Government’s intention is that 306 homes are delivered before the end of this year”.
Ángel Víctor Torres stressed that to this effort we must also add the 512 rentals paid by the Government for families affected by the volcano, among which are 107 in La Bombilla and Puerto Naos who, although their houses were not razed, still cannot be inhabited by existing toxic gases.
Torres insisted that the Government of the Canary Islands continues to work to respond in the most appropriate way possible to this “unprecedented” emergency, always prioritizing the delivery of homes in La Palma, since all those that are being delivered in the Canary Islands belong to this island for the eruption”. As he explained, although these are provisional houses, “they have urbanization, parking, are located near urban centers and allow a response to the drama suffered by palm society.”
For his part, Franquis indicated that, once the work carried out by Endesa on the electrical installation is completed, the first delivery of houses (the modular ones in Los Llanos de Aridane) will take place on the 14th of this month, and the second, the wooden ones in the municipality of El Paso, on the 22nd. The councilor recalled that the El Paso site was handed over to the Government on March 14 and that, since that date, the urbanization and installation works have had to be carried out with all the services.
As the counselor stressed, all the homes that the market has allowed have been purchased and more than 300 will be delivered, apart from rental aid for families, with a maximum amount of 590 euros per month, a line still open for residents of La Bombilla and Puerto Naos.
Franquis pointed out that, of the 1,026 families who initially claimed a home for losing their usual home, the figure was lowered, after studying each file, to those 800 that, between modular, wooden and including rentals, are receiving a public response after a regional investment of 22 million euros during this 2022. These provisional houses are delivered for an initial and extendable term of 3 years, until the delivery of the definitive houses.
During the last months, the Canarian Housing Institute (Icavi) has carried out the urbanization works of the plots and the assembly of 121 modular houses acquired to face the housing emergency caused by the eruption of the volcano, 85 of container type and 36 wooden ones that are being installed in El Paso and Los Llanos de Aridane.
In the municipality of El Paso, the 36 wooden houses are being assembled, while in Los Llanos de Aridane, the electrical connections of 44 container-type modular units are being finalized and another 41 are being assembled on an adjoining plot of land. These homes are being installed on two plots of land donated by the Los Llanos de Aridane City Council in the area known as Camino de los Choriceros.
These container-type houses were acquired by the Ministry at the request of the Los Llanos City Council, an administration that chose this type of housing from all the options presented by the regional government.
In total, the Ministry has acquired 126 modular homes in recent months, of which five wooden ones have already been delivered in Los Llanos; the rest are already assigned and pending delivery to many other families who lost their homes during the eruption. In the purchase of these 126 homes, the Government has invested 7,475,862 euros. For the urbanization works of the three plots that house these modular houses (5 wooden in Los Llanos, 85 container type in Los Llanos and 36 wooden in El Paso) Icavi has allocated a total of 1,360,832 euros.
In addition, the Ministry, either through Icavi or the public company Visocan, has bought and delivered another 140 homes already built in the municipalities of Tazacorte, Fuencaliente, Los Llanos and El Paso. Visocan is also carrying out refurbishment works on a recently acquired building with 40 homes in Breña Baja to serve another 40 families. In total, 306 homes.
In addition, the Ministry is already assisting those evicted from Puerto Naos and La Bombilla through the extraordinary line of rental aid in La Palma, since, of the 510 aid granted to as many families to date, 103 correspond to families evicted from these two nuclei. This aid represents an investment of 1,425,000 euros this year, a contribution that will increase in 2023 to 2,238,359 euros, since an increase in families receiving this extraordinary aid is being detected.
