Mallorca Tenants' Union is born to confront speculation and touristification
The new collective presents itself in Palma with the intention of organizing the tenant class in the face of rising prices and the growing difficulty of accessing decent housing
PalmMallorca now officially has a Tenants' Union. The new collective, which was presented this Saturday at CineCiutat in Palma, is born with the will to articulate a collective response to a housing crisis that has been drowning thousands of island residents for years. The event brought together dozens of people linked to social movements and the world of housing in a call marked by criticism of real estate speculation, the constant increase in rents, and the effects of touristification.
The union's promoters assure that the current situation has turned access to housing into "a social emergency" and defend the need to create a stable tool for pressure, advice, and organization. The project has been gestating over the past few months following different meetings and has been fueled by presentations of the book Poder Llogater in spaces such as Es 4 Cantons in Felanitx, Ateneu l’Elèctrica, and La Fonera, among others.
The new union is inspired by similar experiences in Barcelona and other cities in the State and, in fact, the presentation included the participation of representatives from the Tenants' Union of Catalonia and the Confederation of Tenants' Unions. Jaime Palomera, a researcher specializing in housing policies and one of the most well-known voices in denouncing real estate speculation, also spoke.
During the event, the promoters insisted that Mallorca is experiencing a "limit" situation, with families expelled from their towns, workers unable to afford rent, and young people forced to share flats or leave the island. In this regard, the union sets its main objectives as combating rentism, denouncing the practices of large holders, and putting a stop to a tourist model that, they assure, "has turned housing into an investment product".
The new organization also wants to act as a mutual support network for tenants, offering advice and promoting mobilizations in the coming months. As they explain, the idea is to create an open and assembly-based structure capable of connecting with other social movements and platforms already existing in Mallorca.
The birth of the Tenants' Union arrives at a moment of maximum tension in the Balearic real estate market. In recent years, the price of rent has skyrocketed in practically all municipalities on the island, while more and more residents are reporting difficulties in finding stable housing throughout the year. The phenomenon has been particularly accentuated in Palma and in areas with the most tourist pressure, but it also affects inland towns that until a few years ago were outside this problem.
The promoters of the project assure that the intention is to “move from individual complaint to collective organization” and they claim that housing “cannot continue to depend exclusively on market rules”.