Barcelona offers €1,200 a month to house hard-pressed families in empty tourist lets

Mayoress Ada Colau says: “We cannot allow poor families to live in hostels or guest houses or barely-habitable flats with their children, when there are thousands of empty tourist apartments in the city.”

She had written to the Barcelona Tourist Apartments' Association (APARTUR), initially offering €900 a month in rent paid by the council on behalf of the low-income families who would be settled there – but of the 9,000 or so holiday flats in the metropolitan area, only the owners of two of them signed up.

As a result, Sra Colau has increased the offer to €1,200.

She says the price proposed is 'advantageous' and 'more than reasonable', especially bearing in mind that they come with 'stable rental contracts at a time of crisis and uncertainty', where visitor numbers may well be much lower than usual due to the pandemic – and many of the apartments may end up being uninhabited all summer, losing their owners money.

“The agreement is beneficial for property owners, taking the Covid-19 situation into account, and also for hard-pressed residents who need decent, dignified alternative housing and which they have trouble gaining access to – and who also need somewhere to self-isolate if there's another outbreak,” Colau says.

“This is an opportunity for the property rental sector to earn good money whilst serving the community.”

Even if they were able to afford a very modest flat to rent, Barcelona's poorest families would be priced out of the market in summer, when owners can earn more in a week through renting to holidaymakers than they would in a month the rest of the year.

“Now is a time when it's more crucial than ever to reinforce cooperation between authorities and the private sector,” Colau argues.

Councillor for housing, Lucía Martín, stresses that the city hall's intention is 'evidently not to cover the profits' which tourist apartment owners may lose if visitor numbers fall this summer.

“Everyone in Barcelona is in a tricky financial situation, and we believe tourism accommodation providers have to see it as something positive that the council is prepared to pay long-term rent,” Sra Martín stresses.

“With our initial offer, apartment-owners were a bit more reticent and were opting to see how the situation [potential summer rentals] panned out, but now that there's more information and we've increased our offer, we hope more owners will agree to let their apartments long-term to the council.”

APARTUR has expressed its willingness to work with the council on allowing unoccupied tourist rentals to be used as social housing.

“Ever since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, we've been on the council's side, and we are, and always will be, committed to doing whatever the city needs,” says its chairman, Enrique Alcántara.

At the moment, this will only be a pilot scheme, but if – as is expected – it works well, details will be tweaked over time to 'meet the needs of both parties'.

During the worst of the pandemic – and Barcelona was the second hardest-hit part of Spain, after Madrid – APARTUR members offered the use of 200 flats for free so that the most hard-up families could stay in them, and also another 250 for healthcare staff and care workers to use without charge.

Also, during that time, around 3,700 of the 9,600 or so tourist apartments in the city became long-term residential lets.

Ada Colau, who heads up Barcelona's branch of Podemos – En Comú Podem – started out her public life leading up a nationwide campaign group to stop homes being repossessed during the worst years of the financial crisis.

The then right-wing national government challenged her to stand for election, which she did, becoming mayoress of Spain's second-largest city in May 2015.

Since then, and following a European directive, Spain has changed its repossession laws: Now, a main residence cannot be taken off the owner unless and until at least 12 months of mortgage repayments are in arrears, or 20% or more of the total loan amount, whichever is the lower.

Photograph by APARTUR