4 ms·

Alternative title: Hired thugs abusing the hell out of homeless people living in empty lots

tecleandor 5y ago
Truth is lots of them are violent and have connections with the, ahem, underground. Not-well-mannered boxers, bouncers, neo-nazis...
beaconstudios 5y ago
seems like a combination of /some/ people being rendered homeless by high rents, and /some/ criminals making a living off extorting landlords. I have every sympathy for the former, and none for the latter. Seems like they have a similar issue to SF - lack of building new homes leading to insane house and rent prices.
- babesh 5y ago
  Stop spouting your biases. They are just plain wrong. Do some research first! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Spain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Spain It isn't primarily due to high rents. It is due to the Spanish economy being shitty and badly run for decades. Then foreigners swooped in and bought prime real estate. But that doesn't mean that there is not enough housing. It is just that people were getting more and more poor with more and more unemployment. Here is a relevant quote: "Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the Spanish economy plunged into recession, entering a cycle of negative macroeconomic performance. Compared to the EU's and US's average, the Spanish economy entered recession later (the economy was still growing by 2008), but it stayed there longer. The economic boom of the 2000s was reversed, leaving over a quarter of Spain's workforce unemployed by 2012." It looks like it has recovered some but unemployment is still high especially for the young. Also there was a lot of youth emigration though recently there has been immigration from poorer countries. 25% below the poverty line 15% unemployment
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    The article itself claimed a lack of new housing being built... I know the Spanish economy is weak, but it's concerning when a working family cannot afford rent and clearly changes need to be made to ensure that they can.
    - babesh 5y ago
      Not exactly. It says lack of social housing. In other words, housing for the poor. In the meantime, there is an estimated 10,000 housing units sitting empty in Barcelona. The problem is that the working class has grown increasingly poorer because of the terrible economy. Fix the economy to fix housing. Something needs to pay for the housing. Trying to fix housing without fixing the economy is a fool's errand. "Lucía Martín cut her political teeth in the PAH, the housing pressure group. She believes Catalonia - and Spain more widely - is dealing with the fall-out from decades of failing to invest in social housing." "In Barcelona alone there are an estimated 10,000 empty flats or homes. After the crash of 2008, property prices plummeted and speculation soared. With homelessness still a big problem, unoccupied real estate is a source of grievance, especially as most of it is owned by large firms." "That is what happened to Mariana Stirbu who moved into a flat in the La Sagrera district of Barcelona with her partner and two children three years ago. "The two men who rented us the flat seemed like the owners - they were wearing suits and we went to sign the contract. We were paying 750 euros a month, so everything seemed fine," she says." 750 euros is not that much for a family of 4. More detail on flat size would have been helpful. It is roughly 25% less than I paid (together with a roommate) for a 2 bedroom apartment over 25 years ago. That was the US, but this means that Spain is probably at least 25% poorer than the US was 25 years ago.
      - beaconstudios 5y ago
        You really can't compare the American and Spanish economies on cost of living alone because American incomes are also much higher. For instance, developer jobs here in the UK that aren't leadership roles top out around 60k outside London. So yes you could probably say that Spain is poorer than the US 25 years ago if you only count individual income.
p_j_w 5y ago
It's not any easier to be sympathetic to the point when the first victim in the article is someone who owns a vacation home that largely sits idle in a city with a housing shortage and problems of homelessness. Not that it's not a problem, but damned if that's not as tone deaf as anything I've read in the past month or two.

Truth is lots of them are violent and have connections with the, ahem, underground. Not-well-mannered boxers, bouncers, neo-nazis...

beaconstudios 5y ago

seems like a combination of /some/ people being rendered homeless by high rents, and /some/ criminals making a living off extorting landlords. I have every sympathy for the former, and none for the latter. Seems like they have a similar issue to SF - lack of building new homes leading to insane house and rent prices.

babesh 5y ago
Stop spouting your biases. They are just plain wrong. Do some research first! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Spain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Spain It isn't primarily due to high rents. It is due to the Spanish economy being shitty and badly run for decades. Then foreigners swooped in and bought prime real estate. But that doesn't mean that there is not enough housing. It is just that people were getting more and more poor with more and more unemployment. Here is a relevant quote: "Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the Spanish economy plunged into recession, entering a cycle of negative macroeconomic performance. Compared to the EU's and US's average, the Spanish economy entered recession later (the economy was still growing by 2008), but it stayed there longer. The economic boom of the 2000s was reversed, leaving over a quarter of Spain's workforce unemployed by 2012." It looks like it has recovered some but unemployment is still high especially for the young. Also there was a lot of youth emigration though recently there has been immigration from poorer countries. 25% below the poverty line 15% unemployment
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  The article itself claimed a lack of new housing being built... I know the Spanish economy is weak, but it's concerning when a working family cannot afford rent and clearly changes need to be made to ensure that they can.
  - babesh 5y ago
    Not exactly. It says lack of social housing. In other words, housing for the poor. In the meantime, there is an estimated 10,000 housing units sitting empty in Barcelona. The problem is that the working class has grown increasingly poorer because of the terrible economy. Fix the economy to fix housing. Something needs to pay for the housing. Trying to fix housing without fixing the economy is a fool's errand. "Lucía Martín cut her political teeth in the PAH, the housing pressure group. She believes Catalonia - and Spain more widely - is dealing with the fall-out from decades of failing to invest in social housing." "In Barcelona alone there are an estimated 10,000 empty flats or homes. After the crash of 2008, property prices plummeted and speculation soared. With homelessness still a big problem, unoccupied real estate is a source of grievance, especially as most of it is owned by large firms." "That is what happened to Mariana Stirbu who moved into a flat in the La Sagrera district of Barcelona with her partner and two children three years ago. "The two men who rented us the flat seemed like the owners - they were wearing suits and we went to sign the contract. We were paying 750 euros a month, so everything seemed fine," she says." 750 euros is not that much for a family of 4. More detail on flat size would have been helpful. It is roughly 25% less than I paid (together with a roommate) for a 2 bedroom apartment over 25 years ago. That was the US, but this means that Spain is probably at least 25% poorer than the US was 25 years ago.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      You really can't compare the American and Spanish economies on cost of living alone because American incomes are also much higher. For instance, developer jobs here in the UK that aren't leadership roles top out around 60k outside London. So yes you could probably say that Spain is poorer than the US 25 years ago if you only count individual income.

p_j_w 5y ago

It's not any easier to be sympathetic to the point when the first victim in the article is someone who owns a vacation home that largely sits idle in a city with a housing shortage and problems of homelessness. Not that it's not a problem, but damned if that's not as tone deaf as anything I've read in the past month or two.