Isabel is 33 years old, has two jobs, five roommates and anxiety. “I swear I think about what I did wrong in life. But I look at my friends and almost all of them share an apartment. We work, but we can’t save nor have a life plan. We are fed up and we can’t take it anymore. “That’s why I’m here.”
Thus, letting his voice sing the slogans of demonstration who walked the streets of Malaga this Saturday, as in Seville and Cádiz, to defend the right to decent housing, this woman from Malaga shared with ABC her feeling of “helplessness” and “failure”. Holding tight, high, a sign’Being a landlord is not a job“, in the central street of Granada, asked the administrations to “do something.” “We are here to protest. The associations meet the politicians but nothing changes here,” he lamented.
Meanwhile, life goes on and in Malaga the price of housing continues to rise. The rent has already been set at more than 1,200 euros on average. And the minimum wage in Spain is 1,134 euros per month.
No rent
It is around 1 p.m. and the walk continues through the center of the capital of Malaga. Between applause, whistles, protest songs and banners of “Inactive governments, housing crisis» or “Exchange the left kidney for space”, not far from the head of the march is Javier. He is a temporary teacher from Almería and shared with ABC the doubts he had when accepting his temporary contract in Malaga.
“I thought about it a lot because if you are given a smaller city you can have a certain quality of life, but here it cost me sweat and tears find a rental. And besides, you either share or you’re willing, but there comes a time when you don’t want to use the bathroom and kitchen with strangers,” he said. As he said, it’s not a thought only he had, but it’s something that’s being talked about more and more among his professional colleagues When asked why he ultimately took the job, he responded forcefully. that he needed work “as soon as possible”.
A neighbor on the central street Carretería de Málaga shows a poster during this Saturday’s demonstration in defense of decent housing
There are not only young people in the demonstration. Andrea, a 57-year-old resident of the central Capuchinos neighborhood, also took to the streets to protest. “In my neighborhood, there are fewer and fewer regular neighbors. My building was also filled with tourist apartments and sometimes some come and make a big deal and it’s really unbearable,” he lamented.
Public administrations
During the march called by the “Malaga to live” platform, demonstrators attacked the mayor of the capital, Francisco de la Torre, and the president of the Council of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno. Not against the Spanish government, which is responsible for the current housing law. Under the motto “If they chase us out of the neighborhoods, we’ll stop the city”According to the National Police, the more than 10,000 participants criticized the management carried out by public administrations.
“De la Torre announced that he was going to eliminate tourist apartments. But who believes it? Who will believe it if the town planner herself says that “in Malaga, not everyone is poor because there are those who can buy an apartment without a mortgage”? This does not seem to have a solution, but in the meantime we will be in the streets,” Ana, a 31-year-old psychologist who attended the demonstration, told ABC.
She, like many young people Malaga, Not yet was able to become independent. Like the majority of Spaniards under 35, she is not even considering buying an apartment. The only thing left to do, as he concluded, is to work and believe that political leaders will adopt the necessary measures to put an end to this housing “drama” which is suffocating more people every day.
