In one of the visits that Baharau agrees to see the floor that he wanted to rent, the first question that he had to answer was if he really spoke by telephone with real estate. “Listening to you at Perfect Castilian, how much they see that you personally remain in shock,” explains this 32 people who went through the Odyssey to find a room in Madrid, where he came to work from Barcelona. “I knew that the problem of housing was difficult at the general level, but when you add racial problems, it is even more difficult,” he complains.
Problems for access to the house faced by migrants or racial people are known. In March, Proviviencea published an investigation in which it came to the conclusion that 99% of real estate agents are accepting racist provisions after I made a hundred calls to agency in Madrid and Barcelona, presenting as owners who wanted to put real estate for rent. On the contrary, when they were transferred through tenants, they received a negative in half the cases when they did it with a foreign accent.
In Madrid, 67% of tenants are of Spanish origin, compared with 7.6%, which come from the rest of the European Union and 25.4% of other countries that are faced with the greatest problems. In Barcelona, a ratio of 64.5%, 9.1%and 26.4%, respectively. In groups throughout the state, 14% of the households of Spanish origin live for rent, compared with 70% of the population of migrants, which is the tenant. In this Wednesday, the city scientific -research institute of Barcelona (IDRA) published a report in which he goes beyond these problems to analyze how these people live. “They can hardly afford to live alone; Someone has three choice, except to go to the room, and half of those who get access to rent have at home with serious shortcomings, paying the same as the Spaniards, ”the co -author of work explains, Pablo Preser Ruis.
Helen is 24 years old, and she arrived in Madrid in 2020. He came to study at a private university paid by her parents. In February 2021, he found an apartment in the Goya region, in the Salamanca area, one of the most expensive in the city, for 700 euros. “It was a tiny floor, but I was alone and convenient,” he explains. They asked him for a month of pledge, entrance, agency and guarantees, because he did not have an employment contract. It seemed reasonable and accepted. In December last year, he had to leave this house, and he was avoided in a jungle in real estate.
The case of Helen expresses the name and face to some statistical data collected by the IDRA report. For example, that as soon as they find the floor, foreign tenants have more shortcomings in the house or that their tenants avoid their duties when working with home repairs. After a desperate search, in which she found attempts to fraud with a port and a negative vivine, she eventually gave an apartment in her price range, about 1,400 euros, which she would share with her brother when she landed in Spain. “I was in despair, and since I was the only one who did not receive the pasta, I agreed,” he says.
A few days after entering the house, he began to detect moisture, pests of ants, showers and bugs on the mattress. “Half of the tenants -migrants had some kind of abuse, for example, a refusal to make repairs, rather than repairing a contract or raising prices,” explains Perez Ruis. Hellen confirms this: “I could not sleep, I had parasites, and when I sent the landlord, I told me that this helped me remove, but it was a problem of unpleasantness.” The young woman was forced to leave the house a few weeks after signing the contract with Leonin’s terms to property. 1000 euros for losing in the game game, 400 euros of the output cleaning, suggesting legal costs of the lessor in the case of a legal dispute.
“Racism in the field of real estate affects all people. It is very close to the social class, but also the prejudices that lead to the assumption that a person, for the fact that he is a migrant or racial, will not pay, so they usually ask for more wages, more guarantees … ”, explains the press secretary in the Tenkine of Madrid, Assiatou Diallo Union.
There is another violation of the rights to study, which is the lack of contracts. “What is found, especially in the most central areas, is the overflow on floors, the phenomenon that migrants and rental of premises without a contract suffer, which makes them more vulnerability, which can abandon them faster or not have access to the register, the main requirement to process their administrative situation,” says Diallo. As the following schedule shows, agreements without a heading are practically doubled in the case of foreign people, both in Madrid and in Barcelona, while the storms are also surprisingly higher.
It is this assumption of poverty or vulnerability that also leads to the fact that it is necessary to pay more for the same or for the fact that no one wants. Yahya and his family were supposed to look for an apartment in 2022. At the moment, they planned a visit and, given the extreme urgency, to leave the address in which they were, the young man decided to promote documents and justify the family’s income over 4000 euros per month before appearing on the spot. “Two hours later they told me that they had another dosir, and that they canceled the visit,” he explains. Then he attributed this to his Arab name, but soon confirmed it. The partner called for a few minutes and could go look at the house. He accompanied her. “The employee told us that this is not real estate, that the owner did not want foreign people,” he says.
Yahya recorded this conversation and condemned the facts, first before the Basque government, and then to justice. In no case did not see discrimination. “You have racism, there is a program, and we conducted campaigns encouraging to condemn, but it is difficult. People do not know, they have difficulties with the language, and, in my case, I have not achieved anything either. People are thrown out because all they need is the floor, ”he makes him a net.
Finally, Yahya determined the template. “They rent you if the price of this house is more high,” he explains. In the case of their family, they also had old furniture and some negatives for repair or changes in an outdated or poor condition. “You pay 900 euros, but the floor is not 100%,” he says.
The highest prices – or similar to houses in the worst conditions – also suggest that a gap in money available after payment of rent and expenditure materials. According to the IDRA report, the difference is about 200 euros. “The difficulties of the foreign population in achieving the end of the month can also explain that, despite financial difficulties, it has a higher percentage of the re -equipment of the premises than the Spaniards, in addition to avoiding relatives and familiar exhausting and discriminatory selection process, to go out to the house through the formal market,” the work will be said.
How tiring this process is well knows Baharau that even with the approval of your company, a famous sports club, I would like to find housing. “If not with the obligation of those who pay, you will give you the opportunity to have a room, what moment do you have to arrive?” He asks. He had to live a friend’s house for several months until he received a room through his partner. “I accepted this, despite the fact that the price was very high: 650 euros for the Superpeck room, in which not a single natural light hit the bed, and with the bed, where I had to sleep with reduced legs,” he explains. A few months later, you can move the best floor to Vallek.
They moved three in a short period of time. Like Helen, who was supposed to carry his things twice in a quarter. In fact, these changes at home are more often found among people of foreign origin. As the following schedule shows, every fourth of these people has made three or more removal over the past five years, which is the most common duration of the contract.
To combat discrimination in the field of real estate, the tenant’s trade union recently presented a leadership with the main signs of evidence in the case of a comprehensive law on treatment and non -discrimination, which, regret, is “not fulfilled” and avoiding the abuse or situations of vulnerability. “We want to respond to racism in the field of real estate, which, unique to institutional with the law of Bigger, prevents the life of migrants and racial people,” explains the dialog, which cites other collective efforts, such as Manteros trade unions or care workers. “We are going to fight, because people have no such extra difficulties in access to housing,” he says.
This collective struggle is trying to use the maximum that the union is power. Although sometimes, in a desperate search for a decent and affordable house, it seems that it is useful to put Zancadillas, in which the race begins a little further. Yahya remains in the group on Facebook, into which he entered when he was looking for the floor. From time to time, there are users who are sold on the board to get a rent with the message: “I am from here.”
