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There always seem to be some sympathy in Barcelona for those poor people who can't afford apartments, but there is plenty of really affordable apartments on a t
by cynusx 5y ago
There always seem to be some sympathy in Barcelona for those poor people who can't afford apartments, but there is plenty of really affordable apartments on a train-ride's distance and they are extending the metro every year into new areas.
Okupa's in Barcelona are now run by professional organizations, taking over a property and then subrenting to mostly latin americans who couldn't care less.
They also happily engage in stealing electricity from their neighbors and shortcutting the water meters raising the bills for everybody else (Utilities are really expensive in Barcelona).
Add to that that the mayor of Barcelona comes from the Okupa movement herself and she couldn't care less about people's retirement assets as they would never vote for her.
There are real-estate investors buying apartments from old ladies who lost their extra pension income due to okupa's for cheap and then sending private services to expel the okupa's.
- spaniard89277 5y agoThere aren't plenty of affordable housing when you have large swaths of the population with unstable and low income. The spanish legal and economic setup is just bad. In fact I'd bet that most social spending done by Spain is basically useless, in that it helps basically nothing on social mobiity or capitalization of anyone depeding on them. My region, which I consider sloppy/clumsy at organizing anything, typically does a better job than the central state or other regions. My sister who lives in Ibiza requeted this new "basic income" for the pandemic, it only got a couple of months, and then got tangled into some administrative BS, and fined afterwards. So she has no income, and the rest of us (basically me, a low income worker and my dad, a pensionist) have to provide for her.
- spoonjim 5y agoWhy do you provide for your sister to live in Ibiza instead of somewhere cheaper? If she has no income then she doesn’t need to be there.
- spaniard89277 5y agoShe inherited a house there, it's the cheapest place to live for her. Not to mention she has kids etc.
- thebradbain 5y agoThere’s many reasons someone needs to live somewhere, often unrelated to the financial reason or lack thereof.
- csomar 5y agoI'm pretty sure there are some cheap dwellings somewhere in Ibiza. Given the OP described circumstances, I don't think she's living in the portrayed pool villas with sea-view of Ibiza.
- cynusx 5y agoGoing for a year of holiday on the spanish governments' expense (paro) is definitely a thing. It is extremely common for employees to ask to be fired so they can get unemployment benefits (paro) and travel for a year. But, after living there for 6 years I left because the reason these things are not taken care of is because the electorate sees them as perks. Spain has a huge cultural problem when it comes to work ethics and paying their fair share of taxes.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y agoGreece probably has Spain beat by a large margin in this regard.
- tecleandor 5y agoHaven't seen that much unless is people that's been working non stop for lots of years because: - You don't get 'by default' a year of benefits, you need to work at least for three years to 'accumulate' 360 days of benefits - The benefits are not that useful if you live in a bug city, given the rent prices. Max benefits are 70% of your base salary, with a limit of around 1000€. After 180 days it goes down to 50%. - After that, when you work again, you're probably going to pay a lot of taxes in the first year, to adjust the low taxes (IRPF) you were paying while on benefits.
- woah 5y agoWhy are there so many vacant apartments that this is a viable scam?