I live in Portugal and here the situation is outright ridiculous.
1. There are a ridiculous amount of abandoned properties, when I walk the streets of major cities, sometimes more than half of the buildings even in expensive areas are boarded-up.
2. Meanwhile I am afraid of being homeless soon, I lost my job recently, and the unemployment benefit I can receive is literally half of my rent. Thing is, there is no "worse but cheaper" place to move to. I already live in a "0" apartment, with the "0" referring to the number of rooms. The apartment is literally just an empty square with kitchen sink and bathroom stuff. I don't even have my workstation anymore because literally there is no physical place for it inside the apartment.
People are like: "Build more homes". Yet the amount of abandoned properties (by the way, this also include abandoned farmland! Government is upset that there are tons of that, and the result is land with zero management, with wildfires, poachers, drug traffickers...) is greater than the number of families needing.
It's the same in France so I wouldn't even be surprised.
You can't even cut electricity/heat as it is seen inhumane and in theory you have to renovate/fix the house every time something dangerous needs to be fixed because it's illegal to provide unsafe housing.
Sometimes it takes years for people to get their house back and they often are completely trashed
> ... no security from other residents and no space to build up possessions.
This seems a basic requirement for anyone trying to get to a better life. Are there no more enlightened shelters that provide some secure locker or parcel-checkin system?
If there were no empty properties, there wouldn't be any squatters. Given that there are apparently a lot squatters (in Spain), we can assume that there are a lot of empty properties.
Many cities have a lot of empty properties. Sometimes because they're derilict (and maybe the owner can't/won't repair); sometimes because it's hard to sell/rent out; or maybe the owner is just obscenely rich to the point of not caring. Whatever the reasons, this is something that shouldn't be allowed to exist. Cities are usually seriously space-constrained (by a river, or ancient walls, or roads etc). Not wasting existing real estate should be a no brainer.
At least they have tried something. In some other areas, like Sydney or Melbourne (Australia), everyone who matters (landlords + politicians) owns homes. So nobody is doing anything about it.
Economic benefits are probably the biggest reason for being stuck in those unlivable cities. However the downside might outweigh the upside: higher cost, long commute and lots of worries.
This is so wild to me. Coming from a place in New Zealand where property is incredibly valuable, nothing in my city is ever vacant for more than a few weeks. The idea that land and buildings could remain empty is economically unthinkable.
I didn't say abandoned, I said vacant and unused. The biggest difference between the two examples is that one included home invasion. Not any qualification for authentic, artisanal squatting
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