(back)Access to private housing for undocumented migrants in Spain
According to Blanca Ruiz from Red Acoge, the housing situation of migrants and nationals has
worsened due to the problems in the Spanish housing market. Rent has
significantly increased and access to private housing has thus become more
difficult for all. The Spanish housing policies of the last fifty years have
seriously encouraged property ownership and letting. Angela Sànchez from Provivienda
explained that the Spanish fell in a trap by selling off their agricultural
property and taking refuge in housing ownership. She claims that this is the way
things were planned and the way they were accepted by the population. The public
administrations don’t take their responsibility with regards to housing
seriously.
Around 2% of housing in Spain is State owned, the rest
being private. 85% of the Spanish own housing and only around 13% of all the
housing in the country is available on the market for rent[7].
People looking for a new home can thus only turn to a limited number of private
owners who rent. This situation creates a very competitive atmosphere (which is
also due to the significant increase of European and extra-European immigration
in recent years), especially in large cities like Madrid, which doesn’t help
for prices. A flat in Madrid that is several decades old, hasn’t been
renovated, isn’t heated and has no elevator is frequently rented for around
800euros.
Angela Sànchez from Provivienda asserts: “Among all this demand (for housing), the
immigrant is on the lowest stepping stone. And the undocumented immigrant is on
the stepping-stone that is lower still. (…) In this competitive atmosphere
where the owner can freely choose the tenant according to its appearance,
profession, skin color, age, number of children, whether it has a dog or not
(…), some groups of the population are never chosen”. Indeed due to the
housing shortage and the ludicrously high prices, undocumented migrants tend to
take whatever accommodation they can find. They have access to accommodation
that is generally in much worse condition than what the Spanish are able to
find.
Esther Marcos from Provivienda
explains that immigrants face an added exclusion for being immigrants due to the
owner’s lack of trust towards foreigners. Owners usually ask for a person’s
indefinite work contract, a banker’s reference and to pay a guarantee, which
for an immigrant are generally more difficult to obtain, but especially for an
undocumented migrant, whose work is mostly unstable and badly paid.
Renting many beds in a flat in inhuman conditions is an
increasingly common practice in large cities, and the tendency for several
people to use the same bed for different hours of the day or night has been
named ‘camas calientes’ (warm beds).