The nice problem of housing in rural Spain: “It is not just about attracting people, but about making them stay” | Economy | EUROtoday

The plain of Palencia and the mills dominate the roads in the direction of Paredes de Nava, a spark of hope in rural Spain. The city of two,000 inhabitants has grown 2.7% in 5 years, whereas the inhabitants of the province has fallen 0.3%, in line with the National Institute of Statistics (INE). At first, the City Council mediated between homeowners and new neighbors based mostly on the municipality’s employment wants and managed to draw about 70 folks till the rental provide was exhausted. “There were only empty homes for sale,” says the mayor, Luis Calderón (PP). In 2024, it joined forces with Tutecho, an organization that already operated in cities renting residences to weak folks in trade for decrease profitability. In Paredes de Nava, Tutecho buys the house and rents it under the market; social entities choose weak households and supply employment; The council endorses and accompanies.

This is how the brand new neighbors of Paredes de Nava, the Estrada household, made up of the Peruvian couple Alberto and Karen, each 40 years outdated, their 5 kids and her mom, settled in final Tuesday. The Estradas had spent three years in a hostel in Madrid and moved to the city only a week after Tutecho purchased that two-story, four-bedroom home. “It’s calmer,” Alberto whispers. Six days after arriving, he began as a tractor driver in an agricultural firm with a everlasting contract. For the primary time in Spain, he leaves behind momentary contracts in Madrid as a VTC driver. For her half, Karen has enrolled in a masonry workshop and, if she is admitted, she is going to obtain the minimal wage (1,200 euros) throughout her coaching.

All the wheels appear to work in Paredes de Nava and, in a 12 months and a half, the affiliation with Tutecho has added about 50 neighbors in 11 beforehand empty homes. Other city councils or businessmen have contacted the SOCIMI (listed actual property funding firm) to duplicate the mannequin. At the second, it has been established in ten cities with as much as 5,000 inhabitants, all in Castilla y León. The steadiness thus far, which the corporate offered this Monday exactly in Paredes de Nava, is round twenty residences bought and 89 folks registered.

But if in the actual property half the formulation appears to work, replicating this public-private partnership in municipalities with much less construction or expertise in repopulation can turn into sophisticated within the last part: discovering employment. This represents an awesome problem in lots of cities. According to a research by International Financial Analysts (Afi), solely 56% of Social Security associates in cities with lower than 5,000 inhabitants are salaried, in comparison with greater than 80% in cities. And unemployment in rural areas exceeds the city common by virtually three factors (information from 2021, the newest 12 months accessible). Added to that is the higher job insecurity confronted by the immigrant inhabitants (which represents 85% of Tutecho tenants), with their very own bureaucratic obstacles to accessing employment.

The good storm is noticeable simply 50 kilometers from Paredes de Nava, in Baltanás, one other Palencia municipality. With barely 1,200 inhabitants – the identical as 5 years in the past – the Tutecho challenge has 4 properties right here that welcome 11 new residents of the city. Among them, the Peruvian couple shaped by Alfredo Camus, 37, and Nora del Rosario, 33, together with their three daughters. The household moved from Madrid three months in the past.

A driver within the capital, Camus has not labored a single day in Baltanás attributable to issues along with his visa. The processing, he alleges, is sophisticated as a result of he doesn’t have a automobile and can’t discover transportation to reach in Madrid earlier than the Peruvian consulate closes at two within the afternoon. The president of Tutecho, Blanca Hernández, admits to having heard “many complaints about mobility” and factors out that the corporate presents free automobile rental for its tenants. But whereas Camus’ visa is being resolved, the lease for the household house—a two-story, three-bedroom condo—is barely lined by the wage of Del Rosario, who works part-time in a bar.

Job insecurity and depopulation are a vicious circle in rural Spain, concluded final October the Science and Technology Commission of the Congress of Deputies, based mostly on information from the aforementioned Afi research: “The decline in population and low demographic density discourage public investment in infrastructure and services such as mobility, education or health. The worse access to education reduces training opportunities and generates pockets of less qualified workers, which together with the lack of investment and “Depopulation promotes a state of affairs of precariousness and low employability that pushes folks to to migrate.”

“Sometimes we say: ‘I don’t know if we were right to come,’ Del Rosario laments while looking at the golden balloons that, stuck to the wall for a few days, commemorate the celebration of her eldest daughter’s 15th birthday. In Madrid, the family lived cramped in a single room in an apartment shared with two others. “The problem there was finding housing, but we always had work,” adds the woman.

A tenant of the Tutecho project in Baltanás left without warning last summer, says the town’s mayor, María José de la Fuente (PP). He had just arrived and had not yet moved the rest of his family to the municipality. He had been assigned to cover a sick leave at a nursing home. “Some people really prefer a more urban life,” De la Fuente justifies regretfully. “The challenge is to stabilize the people here, try to adjust the expectations of the new neighbors with the jobs here and work a little on integration so that these people remain in the municipality and are not birds of passage,” summarizes the mayor.

The apartment was immediately reassigned and, according to the president of Tutecho, that was the only case of abandonment of the project. Regarding the employment difficulties that its tenants may encounter, remember that the socimi “helps in the search for employment, but always with the help of the City Council and social entities.”

One of the social entities with the most experience in the subject, Proyecto Arraigo, has facilitated the arrival of more than 1,000 families to towns throughout Spain during its 10 years of existence, including Paredes de Nava and Baltanás, where it coincides with the Tutecho initiative. Its general director and founder, Enrique Martínez-Pomar, does not allow himself to be carried away by the pessimism reflected in the data: “There are always positions, you just have to look for them,” he says. The entity has a database of 34,000 families voluntarily registered to be assigned to a location. “If we’d like bakers, we search for one. We have about 60 in our base,” says Martínez-Pomar.

Not all towns start from the same situation, as a social worker from Baltanás warned in the hallways of the City Hall. This municipality has a much more limited budget for employment and support tasks compared to that of Paredes de Nava. The town of Camus and Del Rosario depends on the Provincial Council, while the town of the Estradas is one of the few in the province with its own budget, thanks to direct aid from the Government destined for already consolidated projects. As an example, and according to Martínez-Pomar’s calculations regarding the collaboration with Proyecto Arraigo, Baltanás shares 160,000 euros with 40 other municipalities, while Paredes de Nava has about 40,000 euros just for itself.

In the town of Estradas, where everything seems to be going well, the construction of a factory for a Madrid company began a year ago to convert sunflower seeds into energy. The project will generate around 100 direct jobs, the mayor estimates, in addition to the 200 workers on site today. “They eat here and they are already reactivating the hospitality industry,” celebrates the mayor. In one of the town’s restaurants, one of those workers advises avoiding the gigantic plate of beans: “I used to be contemplating it, however I get sleepy and now we have to work within the afternoon,” he tells his colleague.