- 6 days ago
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00:00of Tenerife, where second homes and vacant hotels are being taken over by squatters.
00:06A housing crisis is gripping Spain's Canary Islands, with over-tourism blamed for much
00:11of the shortage. As a result, properties are being occupied by people struggling to find
00:16somewhere to live, or criminals looking to make a quick buck. Anya Pop has travelled
00:21to the islands to find the squatters holding homes and livelihoods to ransom, and the hard
00:26man evicts, employed to get them out.
00:32This is not the side of Tenerife that you're meant to see.
00:39A housing crisis and a squatting problem that has reached boiling point.
00:47Amid the tourist hotspots, we meet desperate people in homes and hotels that aren't theirs.
00:52Exploiting gaps in the law to occupy someone else's property, leaving property owners feeling
01:07abandoned and at the mercy of criminal gangs.
01:09It's called the Sunshine Centre of Europe, where year-round warmth keeps the hotels full, and the party going.
01:15It's called the Sunshine Centre of Europe, where year-round warmth keeps the hotels full, and the party going.
01:25But the tourist boom is coming at a cost to those living here, disguising a hidden crisis.
01:31It's called the Sunshine Centre of Europe, where year-round warmth keeps the hotels full, and the party going.
01:37But the tourist boom is coming at a cost to those living here, disguising a hidden crisis.
01:43Across Tenerife, a housing emergency has caused soaring rents, and a squatting problem that is pitting communities against each other.
01:59It's technically illegal here, but under Spanish law, once a building has been occupied for 48 hours, a court order is needed to get people out.
02:07It's 6am, and we're on our way to a dawn raid, a building that's been occupied for at least two years.
02:21It's really hard to get people out using the court, so some people are resorting to companies that don't mind pushing the boundaries to get people out.
02:28All 26 apartments in this building are illegally occupied, so the owner has hired a controversial private company,
02:36made up of former bouncers and some ex-convicts, to negotiate directly with the squatters.
02:42How many people do you know that the building already has a owner?
02:50How many people do you know?
02:52Ladies, ladies, I speak.
02:56The children are scared.
02:58It's your fault, it's your fault.
03:00It's your fault.
03:01It's your fault.
03:02It's your fault.
03:03It's your fault.
03:04It's your fault.
03:05And you're the owner.
03:07You're the owner.
03:08At the moment, you're the owner.
03:11Roberto Perez spent three years in prison for drug trafficking, but says he now makes a clean living evicting squatters.
03:24His men can legally enter the building's communal areas, but it's illegal for them to remove people by force.
03:32We're going to ask you the right to be here as a pacific occupants, not with violence.
03:39And for you to remove the property to someone who is not a violence?
03:42Of course.
03:43Of course.
03:44Of course.
03:45No Underwater.
03:46You're the owner.
03:47You're a patient.
03:48You're a patient that's got busted.
03:49You don't call me theوں of the prison.
03:50You're one of them.
03:51You're one of the people who is a son, right?
03:53for its confrontational approach.
04:23We are not delincuentes here, as you say.
04:27If you know, those who I see daily,
04:30they work in the Colombian panadería,
04:33the others in the work, the majority in the hotels.
04:37The gentleman works in the work.
04:39I don't know any delincuentes here.
04:41The residents say they're just normal people,
04:44they all work, they've called the police
04:46and they've just arrived.
04:48Do you have any of the homes of one of them?
04:51No.
04:52In the garage, no.
04:54Yannet Gonzalez is leading the bloc's fight against eviction.
04:58She fled the war in Colombia in the late 90s
05:01and now has a Spanish passport.
05:03She told us that they moved into the abandoned building
05:06more than 15 years ago
05:08and fixed up the apartments themselves,
05:10but a new owner recently bought it and wants them out.
05:14What would you say to those people who think
05:16that this kind of living is wrong,
05:18that this belongs to somebody else
05:20and that you have no right to just stay here for free?
05:41Yannet works as a cleaner in a hotel.
05:43She says she's happy to pay rent,
05:45but gets emotional when talking about the impossibility of it
05:48on minimum wage.
06:02Roberto has managed to repossess more than 10 occupied buildings
06:06across the islands since setting up two years ago.
06:09You said when you spoke to them upstairs
06:11that you knew some of them were vulnerable.
06:12There were old women there and young children.
06:16you said they work and are in Spain legally,
06:17but like Yannet have been unable to find affordable housing
06:18on their low wages.
06:19This is the only job that there is?
06:20Yes, yes.
06:21You have to take the block and put it in there.
06:22You have to take the block and put it in there.
06:23You have to take the block and put it in there.
06:24You have to take the block and put it in there.
06:28But the problem that we have been trying to do is
06:28that we do never leave anyone on the road.
06:29But the big problem is that we just have the immigration.
06:30he said they work and they're in Spain legally,
06:31but like Yannet have been unable to find affordable housing
06:35and can't find a low wages in their low wages.
06:37have been unable to find affordable housing on their low wages.
06:50They're building a wall to remove access to the garage
06:53for parking or storage.
06:54They'll also have a 24-hour presence,
06:57all part of their plan to drive people out.
07:07Some people criticise the work of Dessa Cooper Groups,
07:10but how do you see it?
07:17There were over 16,000 squatting cases across Spain last year.
07:22The Spanish constitution enshrines the right to a home,
07:25so removing people can take years.
07:29A new tougher law was introduced in March
07:31to protect owners from squatters,
07:33but many complain the law isn't being implemented
07:36and owners remain unprotected.
07:39We're on our way to meet Margarita,
07:40whose family hotel got taken over by squatters
07:43earlier this year.
07:44She's tried everything to get them out,
07:46but they're still there.
07:48It's a pretty big hotel,
07:50with piscines, tennis courts.
07:54How many rooms?
07:5692 rooms.
07:58Yes.
07:59And they're very big?
08:00Yes, very big.
08:01They're about 40,000 square meters.
08:06Margarita's dad bought the hotel decades ago
08:09and transformed it into this luxury resort.
08:12Then in February this year,
08:14a small group of squatters
08:15forced their way into the property
08:17while it was empty,
08:18ahead of a potential sale.
08:20In a week, there were more than 50 people
08:24occupying the hotel
08:25and today I think there are more than 200.
08:28They say that there are some kind of mafia
08:30involved in the hotel
08:31that is making a business,
08:33and I'm reiterating,
08:34with our houses, selling them.
08:36Have you spoken to the people
08:37who took over the hotel?
08:38What they asked for the hotel
08:40was about 250,000 euros
08:43and that we would find a place where they live.
08:45It was an incredible thing to understand.
08:48It was a torture.
08:50Spanish law dictates that even when a property is occupied,
08:54the owner must keep paying the energy bills.
08:57If Margarita refuses,
08:59the squatters can take her to court.
09:01Well, look, we have the bills.
09:05We have the first one,
09:07which was about 3,000 euros.
09:09They have increased.
09:10This one, for example, is about 5,900.
09:13This one is only for a month?
09:16Yes, it's a month.
09:18And this one is the last one,
09:20which has been about 6,000 euros.
09:22So, there are no options for not paying?
09:26We have to keep paying them.
09:27It's impossible, but it's like this.
09:30Surely, this just incentivizes them to stay.
09:33Yes, they are like the king.
09:40We're going to go and try and speak to some of the people
09:42that are now living in Margarita's hotel.
09:44She hasn't been back there since they moved in
09:46because police have told her it's a gang that took it over
09:49who are now renting out the rooms to people.
09:51There are signs of drug use.
09:53And police have declared some areas of the hotel
09:56a no-go zone.
10:00It must be soul-destroying for Margarita.
10:03She put all this work into the hotel and now everything is dying.
10:05Margarita has been told by police that the gang controlling the hotel
10:07is Moroccan.
10:10Criminal groups use gaps in Spanish law to invade properties
10:12and then charge rent.
10:14These doors aren't even here anymore.
10:30The electrics have been pulled out.
10:33Hello.
10:34Hello.
10:35Hello.
10:36Hello.
10:37Hello.
10:38Hello.
10:39Hello.
10:40Yes, and you?
10:41Yes, but you are not recording.
10:42No, no, no, it's fine.
10:43We just want to understand a little bit what is happening here.
10:45We want to get to the camera first.
10:46We just want to understand the history.
10:49We know that there are people living here and living here.
10:52In the seven months since it's been occupied, neighbours have made more than 160 call-outs
11:17to the police, often for violent incidents.
11:20We tried to speak to people living in the hotel.
11:36But no one was willing to talk on camera.
11:39Most people we spoke to were from Colombia and had arrived on the island within the last
11:43year.
11:44It wasn't clear if they were here legally.
11:47They told us they pay the gang for the rooms.
11:49We tried to speak to people living on this corridor.
11:52There's lots of families.
11:53We've seen quite a few children.
11:56We've seen people coming and going to work.
11:59And the thing that they're all saying is that they just can't afford to live anywhere else
12:04on the island.
12:05We spoke with one man who'd been living here for almost 30 years.
12:08But he said the rent's just too high.
12:10And this is the only place that he can afford.
12:19You can see some of Anne-Marie's over there where they probably serve food.
12:22It's very messy in here.
12:25It's very dirty.
12:26It smells.
12:27So these are the pools.
12:30And now they're full of leaves.
12:34Rubbish.
12:36There are vulnerable people living inside.
12:42A recent inspection by social services documented 24 children and three pregnant women there.
12:48We spent a few hours in there.
12:51We had some really desperate stories of how people came to be here.
12:55And most of them said they had no choice.
12:57They couldn't afford to live anywhere else.
12:59But the reality is we smelt urine in there.
13:02We saw what we think was human faeces.
13:05All the windows were smashed.
13:07The hotel was completely ruined.
13:09And even if Margarita gets the hotel back, she'll have to spend hundreds of thousands to get it back up and running.
13:17Tourism makes up more than a third of the Canary's economy and provides jobs to 40% of the islands.
13:23But many a minimum wage.
13:25And housing prices are being driven higher by property owners who prioritise short-term holiday lets over less lucrative long-term rentals, leaving fewer homes for locals.
13:36Shockingly, shanty towns are now appearing on wasteland.
13:41Some of these structures look temporary, yes, but like they've been here for a while.
13:46Yeah, this has built up over the last five or ten years, mainly as a consequence of the holiday rental boom which started with companies like Airbnb.
13:57Brian Harrison is a housing activist and has lived in Tenerife for over 30 years.
14:03What we're seeing here is a direct consequence of the policy of tourism in the Canary Islands.
14:11No sewerage, no running water, very unhygienic conditions.
14:17People living the way they can, the best they can.
14:19These aren't unemployed people.
14:21Most of these people are working in the tourist industry.
14:24On the face of it, you'd imagine that, you know, more tourism equals more money for locals. Is that not the case?
14:30Well, for the last three years, there's been record levels of tourism in Tenerife and the other Canary Islands.
14:36But obviously, I'm sure these people are over the moon with the figures. They're not helping these people at all.
14:41It's not just tenants driven into desperate situations in the Canaries, but some owners too.
14:48Carlos was medically retired, so can't afford to rent.
14:51He owns an apartment in Las Palmas, but the tenant stopped paying and refuses to move out.
14:57So he's ended up living in this metal shipping container.
15:00It's a lot of color here.
15:02It's too much.
15:03Imagine if you're here to live.
15:04Or if you're going to spend all day here, because otherwise...
15:05Yes.
15:06Fighting to get his property back has cost him thousands of euros in legal fees.
15:12I've already been in court and I've been waiting for it.
15:15I've been waiting for it.
15:16I've already spent two years since the first payment.
15:18And on top of it, I've been able to profit by making a business here in Las Palmas.
15:22And how do you feel about the situation?
15:24Enojated or frustrated?
15:26Oh, I've been in psychological treatment.
15:29I've had to go to the psychologist, to the psychiatrist, to take pastillas to sleep.
15:33You're really sick.
15:34You're losing your dreams.
15:35You're all the time thinking about that.
15:37You want to take justice in your hands.
15:39You want to go to your house and go to your house and take them out of the way you need.
15:44But you don't do it because you know that the law protects them.
15:49Today, Margarita and her husband have come to the regional court to continue their battle for their hotel.
15:55I want to show you the images of the hotel.
15:59I don't have anything left there.
16:02I remember a lot of my father.
16:05Because if my father saw this, it would give him something.
16:08I mean, it would give him an impact.
16:10I don't know.
16:11People on both sides of the housing crisis say the government needs to do more.
16:16Something we put to the Canary Islands housing minister.
16:19Do you think you've built enough social housing?
16:35Desde luego el turismo es imprescindible en Canarias.
16:38Pero es verdad que hay prioridades que muchas veces el propio turismo de alguna manera tapona.
16:47Yo hoy creo que es más prioritario construir viviendas y construir hoteles.
16:51Lo que hacemos es una llamada que nos invita a un nuevo desacrupa de desacrupa.
16:56Primero, Roberto le da un mensaje a sus hombres.
16:59Buenos días a todos. Antes de nada, gracias por estar aquí, como siempre.
17:03He's clearly proud of the work they do.
17:05Believing he's helping those with a criminal past, like him, work on the right side of the law.
17:11Hemos tenido muchas denuncias, acciones, amenazas, delitos de un montón de cosas.
17:16No he sido condenado a nada, nunca, por esta empresa y por este trabajo que hacemos.
17:22Antiguamente era un delincuente, no pasa nada.
17:24Algunos de aquí también, y eso me enorgullece que podamos darle oportunidad a la gente.
17:30Their work is lucrative.
17:32For a property with multiple apartments, they charge tens of thousands of euros.
17:37The men wear stab vests in case of any trouble, and to ensure they look the part.
17:49No tocamos nadie.
17:50Si nos tocan, o nos golpean, repelemos el atari.
17:54Intentaremos no golpear nadie en la cara, ni en ningún sitio.
17:58Venga, vamos a correr.
18:00Venga, vamos a correr.
18:06The company signed a contract with the building's owner several months ago,
18:10so they have already visited to negotiate with squatters.
18:13Today they're back to keep the pressure on.
18:16The residents here know Roberto, and know their rights.
18:29The residents here know Roberto, and know their rights.
18:31Jessica, Santi, queremos hablar contigo, venga.
18:42Venga, llevamos mucho tiempo con esto, ya nos han vacilado demasiado.
18:46Venga, venga, venga.
18:52Dígame.
18:55¿Cómo estamos?
18:56Bien.
18:57¿Te parece bien todo lo que está pasando aquí?
18:59¿Qué está pasando?
19:00Bueno, te voy a explicar claro.
19:01Nosotros no nos vamos a ir de aquí, ¿vale?
19:03Ya se acabó la broma.
19:05Les vamos a dar la oportunidad de que sois tres familias que se reubiquen en una casa.
19:09Ah, no, eso es cosa que a ninguno le interesa, ni a mí me interesa.
19:12Escúchame.
19:14Escúchame, que no seas maleducada.
19:16No.
19:17¿Por qué no me la devuelves?
19:19Jessica.
19:20No, no.
19:21¿Te parece bien?
19:22Sí.
19:23¿Tienes dueños en la casa?
19:24No, en ningún momento.
19:25No.
19:26¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?
19:27Vale.
19:28¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?
19:29No.
19:34The squatters we saw were mostly families with young children.
19:41Hola.
19:42¿Cómo están?
19:43¿Qué?
19:44Vale, hablaremos con ti vos iguales.
19:45¿Sabes lo que hay?
19:46Tranquilo.
19:47No te preocupes por eso.
19:48Sí?
19:49No, no.
19:50Una mujer era capaz de hablar con nosotros anónimo.
19:52Ella dice que llegó a Colombia en el año pasado con su esposa y tres hijas.
19:57En unos meses, su esposa abandonó ellos.
20:00Ella dice que un hombre morocco le ofreció el apartamento de 3,000 euros.
20:04Estaba yendo a asuntos sociales.
20:07Mira, voy a quedar en situación de calle con las niñas.
20:10Necesito un piso.
20:11Y ellos solo me decían que no hay, no hay, no hay piso.
20:14¿Qué es lo que se siente?
20:15¿Qué es lo que se siente cuando hay?
20:16Cuando hay gente que se siente en el edificio.
20:19Estaba asustada porque no tengo para dónde irme con los niños.
20:25Y me quiero ir para mi casa, pero tampoco el padre de las niñas me da algún permiso para yo irme a mi país.
20:35Once again, the residents call the police.
20:37But this time, things play out a little differently.
20:41Why are there so many of you waiting outside?
20:43Do you think that it's a bit intimidating maybe for those inside?
20:57How do you feel when they get quite upset when you arrive?
21:00Roberto pleads with the police officer, but to no avail.
21:23He's led down the stairs in handcuffs, filmed by his men.
21:40Outside, they surround the police to protest his arrest and continue to argue for the officers
21:45to let their boss go.
21:48But things are only getting more heated.
21:51After a few minutes, the officer uses his pepper spray to get them to back off.
22:08That situation exploded really quickly.
22:11The group say that everything they're doing is within the law and they're doing nothing wrong.
22:15But it's clear that both the people they're trying to evict who are standing here watching all this play out
22:20and the police are intimidated by the group.
22:24As soon as the police have left, the situation escalates again
22:27as Roberto's men and the families they were trying to evict start screaming insults at each other.
22:32How much do you have for them without paying for cocaine, how many years?
22:37No you're reading.
22:38Excuse me are the others.
22:39For other people paying for the insurance company and divorceępers.
22:41Here's what they want.
22:44What do you want?
22:46What do you think about Simeon who will pay for cocaine, because they're paying for the weight?
22:47agne, pay free, pay through the house, pay through the whole world.
22:50The Desa Cooper men decide to leave, but they'll be back to finish the job.
23:04Later that evening, Roberta is charged with coercion, which he denies.
23:10Across Spain, gaps in the law have left people and homes exposed to exploitation.
23:16It's clear that government intervention is desperately needed here, but they've given
23:21the green light to yet more hotels being built, and that will need more workers, and it's
23:26not clear where those workers will live.
23:30All of this will add yet more pressure to a situation that's already at boiling point.
23:46The End
23:56The End
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