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00:00island of 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 of
00:11the shortage. As a result, properties are being occupied by people struggling to find somewhere
00:16to live, or criminals looking to make a quick buck. Anya Pop has travelled to the islands to
00:22find the squatters holding homes and livelihoods to ransom, and the hard man evictors employed to
00:28get 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.
01:05Leaving property owners feeling abandoned 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.
01:28It's called the Sunshine Centre of Europe, where year-round warmth keeps the hotels full and the party going.
01:42But the tourist boom is coming at a cost to those living here.
01:46Disguising a hidden crisis.
01:49Across Tenerife, a housing emergency has caused soaring rents.
01:54And 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,
02:05a court order is needed to get people out.
02:08A long, expensive process that's leading some owners to take matters into their own hands.
02:13It's 6am and we're on our way to a dawn raid, a building that's been occupied for at least two years.
02:22It'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.
02:29All 26 apartments in this building are illegally occupied.
02:33So the owner has hired a controversial private company made up of former bouncers and some ex-convicts to negotiate directly with the squatters.
02:43´BUTEN
02:51´CANTO HACE
02:53´SEÑORES, ¡SEÑORES!
02:55´ABLO YO!
02:56´LOS NIÑOS ESTÁS ASUSTADOS.
02:58´A CULPA ES TUYAS, SEMAN UN NIÑO ASUSTADOS AQUÍA.
03:01´Esto no es de ustedes.
03:02´Esto es el dueño.
03:03´El que representa la propiedad.
03:05´Y UTED ES LA dueña.
03:07´¿Y UTED ES LA dueña?
03:08Roberto Perez has spent three years in prison for drug trafficking, but says he now makes
03:22a clean living evicting squatters.
03:26His men can legally enter the building's communal areas, but it's illegal for them to remove
03:31people by force.
03:38Eviction companies, known as Desocupas, are big business in Tenerife.
03:51Roberto's has earned a reputation for its confrontational approach.
04:08I know one thing, and I have more than clear, here are families who need gas, are vulnerable,
04:14100% I know, but here are more than half families who have better cars than I, who have
04:21jobs, who have business and who have leave.
04:24But we are not delincuents, as you say, if you know, those who I see daily, they work
04:31in the Colombian panaderia, the others in the work, the majority in the hotels, we work.
04:38The man works in the work, I don't know any delincuents.
04:42The residents say they're just normal people, they all work, they've called the police and
04:46they've just arrived.
04:48Yanet Gonzalez is leading the bloc's fight against eviction.
04:59She fled the war in Colombia in the late 90s and now has a Spanish passport.
05:04She told us that they moved into the abandoned building more than 15 years ago and fixed up
05:09the apartments themselves, but a new owner recently bought it and wants them out.
05:15What would you say to those people who think that this kind of living is wrong, that this
05:19belongs to somebody else and that you have no right to just stay here for free?
05:41Yanet works as a cleaner in a hotel.
05:44She says she's happy to pay rent, but gets emotional when talking about the impossibility
05:48of it on minimum wage.
06:02Roberto has managed to repossess more than ten occupied buildings across the islands since
06:07setting up two years ago.
06:09You said when you spoke to them upstairs that you knew some of them were vulnerable.
06:13There were old women there and young children.
06:16This work, many times, you don't feel good.
06:18From here, they always go with us, they go with us, they go with us, they go with us, they
06:21go with an economic amount to start their lives.
06:24We never leave anyone on the street.
06:27But the big problem we have is immigration.
06:30Nobody is Spanish.
06:31The residents we spoke to said they work and are in Spain legally.
06:36But like Yanet, have been unable to find affordable housing on their low wages.
06:41They are building a wall to remove access to the garage for parking or storage.
06:54They will also have a 24-hour presence, all part of their plan to drive people out.
07:01Some people criticise the work of Desert Cooper groups, but how do you see it?
07:15There were over 16,000 squatting cases across Spain last year.
07:21The Spanish constitution enshrines the right to a home, so removing people can take years.
07:28A new tougher law was introduced in March to protect owners from squatters, but many
07:34complain the law isn't being implemented and owners remain unprotected.
07:39We're on our way to meet Margarita, whose family hotel got taken over by squatters earlier
07:44this year.
07:45She's tried everything to get them out, but they're still there.
07:48Margarita's dad bought the hotel decades ago and transformed it into this luxury resort.
08:13Then in February this year, a small group of squatters forced their way into the property
08:17while it was empty, ahead of a potential sale.
08:20At the end of a week, there were more than 50 people occupying the hotel, and today I think
08:24there are more than 200 people.
08:28They say there are some kind of mafia involved in the hotel that is making a business, and
08:33I'm reiterating, with our houses, selling them.
08:36Have you spoken to the people who took over the hotel?
08:38What they asked for the hotel was 250,000 euros, and we would find a place where they lived.
08:45It was an incredible thing to understand.
08:48It was a torture.
08:49Spanish law dictates that even when a property is occupied, the owner must keep paying the energy
08:56bills.
08:57If Margarita refuses, the squatters can take her to court.
09:01So the first one had dropped by about 3.000 euros.
09:08They have increased.
09:09This is, for instance, for this year.
09:11Why did they have a loan from 5900?
09:12Is this only for a month?
09:13Yes, for this month, it is.
09:14A month?
09:19The last one had been about 6.000 euros.
09:22So they don't have options to pay for it?
09:26We have to keep paying for it. It's not understandable, but it's like that.
09:30Surely this just incentivizes them to stay.
09:33Yes, they are like Reyes.
09:39We're going to go and try and speak to some of the people
09:41that 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,
09:48who are now renting out the rooms to people.
09:51There's signs of drug use.
09:53And police have declared some areas of the hotel a no-go zone.
10:05There it is.
10:09Must be soul-destroying for Margarita.
10:11She put all this work into the hotel and now everything is dying.
10:17Margarita has been told by police
10:19that the gang controlling the hotel is Moroccan.
10:22Criminal groups use gaps in Spanish law to invade properties
10:25and then charge rent.
10:27These doors aren't even here anymore.
10:30The electrics have been pulled out.
10:33Hello, good.
10:34Hello, good.
10:35Hello, good.
10:36Hello, good.
10:37Yes, and you?
10:38Yes?
10:39No, but we're not recording today.
10:41No, no, no, it's okay.
10:42We just want to understand a little bit what's happening here.
10:44We're going to get off the camera first.
10:46We just want to understand all the parts of the history.
10:50We know that there are people living here and living here.
10:53We want to talk to them alone.
10:54Yes, I don't have a problem here.
10:56There's no problem here.
10:57There's no problem.
10:58There's no problem.
10:59There's no problem.
11:00There's no problem.
11:01There's no problem.
11:02There's no problem.
11:03There's no problem.
11:04There's no problem.
11:05There's no problem.
11:06There's no problem.
11:07Okay.
11:08Bye.
11:09Bye.
11:10Bye.
11:11Bye.
11:12In the seven months since it's been occupied,
11:14neighbors have made more than 160 call-outs to the police,
11:18often for violent incidents.
11:20I'm Ania, a periodist from England.
11:23Hello.
11:25We try to speak to people living in the hotel.
11:28There's no problem.
11:29I'm here to know the situation in this hotel.
11:33Bye.
11:34Bye.
11:35But no-one was willing to talk on camera.
11:38Most people we spoke to were from Colombia
11:40and had arrived on the island within the last year.
11:43It wasn't clear if they were here legally.
11:46They told us they pay the gang for the rooms.
11:49We try to speak to people living on this corridor.
11:52There's lots of families.
11:53We've seen quite a few children.
11:55We've seen people coming and going to work.
11:58And the thing that they're all saying is
12:01that they just can't afford to live anywhere else on the island.
12:04We 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.
12:12You can see some of Bain-Marie's over there where they probably serve food.
12:24It's very messy in here.
12:25It's very dirty.
12:26It smells.
12:29So these are the pools.
12:31Now they're full of leaves and rubbish.
12:40There are vulnerable people living inside.
12:42A recent inspection by social services documented 24 children
12:46and three pregnant women there.
12:48We spent a few hours in there.
12:50We had some really desperate stories of how people came to be here
12:54and 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.
13:01We saw what we think was human faeces.
13:05All the windows were smashed.
13:07The hotel was completely ruined.
13:08And even if Margarita gets the hotel back,
13:11she'll have to spend hundreds of thousands to get it back up and running.
13:15Tourism makes up more than a third of the Canary's economy
13:19and provides jobs to 40% of the islands,
13:22but many a minimum wage
13:24and housing prices are being driven higher by property owners
13:28who prioritise short-term holiday lets over less lucrative long-term rentals,
13:33leaving fewer homes for locals.
13:36Shockingly, shanty towns are now appearing on wasteland.
13:41Some of these structures look temporary, yes,
13:44but they've been here for a while.
13:46Yeah, this has built up over the last five or ten years,
13:49mainly as a consequence of the holiday rental boom
13:54which started with companies like Airbnb.
13:57Brian Harrison is a housing activist
13:59and has lived in Tenerife for over 30 years.
14:03What we're seeing here is a direct consequence
14:06of the policy of tourism in the Canary Islands.
14:11No sewerage, no running water, very unhygienic conditions,
14:16people 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,
14:26more tourism equals more money for locals.
14:29Is that not the case?
14:30Well, for the last three years there's been record levels of tourism
14:33in Tenerife and the other Canary Islands.
14:35But obviously I'm sure these people are over the moon with the figures.
14:38They're not helping these people at all.
14:42It's not just tenants driven into desperate situations in the Canaries,
14:45but some owners too.
14:47Carlos was medically retired so can't afford to rent.
14:50He owns an apartment in Las Palmas,
14:53but the tenant stopped paying and refuses to move out.
14:56So he's ended up living in this metal shipping container.
15:00It's a lot of colour here.
15:02It's too much.
15:03Yes.
15:04Imagine if you're here to live,
15:05and you can spend all day here.
15:07Yes.
15:08Fighting to get his property back
15:09has cost him thousands of euros in legal fees.
15:12It's been a year since I was in court
15:14and still I'm still waiting for it.
15:16It's been two years since the first payment.
15:18And on top of it,
15:19I'm going to be able to make a business here in the house.
15:22And how do you feel about the situation?
15:24Are you angry or frustrated?
15:26Oh, I've been in psychological treatment.
15:28I've had to go to the psychologist, to the psychiatrist,
15:31to take pastures to sleep.
15:32You're really sick.
15:33You're going to take your dreams.
15:35You're all the time thinking about that.
15:36You want to take the justice in your hands.
15:38You want to go to your house and go to your house
15:41and take them out of the way you need.
15:43But you don't do it
15:44because you know that the law really protects them.
15:48Today, Margarita and her husband
15:50have come to the regional court
15:52to continue their battle for their hotel.
15:54People on both sides of the housing crisis
15:57say the government needs to do more,
15:59something we put to the Canary Islands Housing Minister.
16:01For example, the housing has been down for the last 20 years.
16:02People on both sides of the housing crisis
16:04say the government needs to do more,
16:05something we put to the Canary Islands Housing Minister.
16:07Do you think you've built enough social housing?
16:12People on both sides of the housing crisis
16:14say the government needs to do more,
16:16something we put to the Canary Islands Housing Minister.
16:19For example, the housing costs have been down for the last 50%
16:23and 70% in the last few years.
16:25In Canary, the last year,
16:27there have been 20.000 people more.
16:29But in the last 20 years,
16:31a half a million people more.
16:33Do you think you've built enough social housing?
16:35Of course, tourism is impossible in Canary.
16:38But it's true that there are priorities
16:41that many times the tourism itself
16:44is in the same way.
16:47Today, I think it's more priority
16:49to build houses than to build hotels.
16:52We get a call inviting us
16:54on another Desa Cooper eviction raid.
16:56First, Roberto gives a briefing to his men.
17:03He's clearly proud of the work they do,
17:05believing he's helping those with a criminal past,
17:07like him, work on the right side of the law.
17:21They were a criminal,
17:22they were a criminal,
17:23they didn't happen.
17:24Some of them here too.
17:25And that's what I'm proud of
17:26that we can give them opportunities to the people.
17:30Their work is lucrative.
17:31For a property with multiple apartments,
17:33they charge tens of thousands of euros.
17:41The men wear stab vests in case of any trouble
17:44and to ensure they look the part.
17:46The company signed a contract
18:07with the building's owner several months ago,
18:10so they have already visited
18:11to negotiate with squatters.
18:13Today, they're back to keep the pressure on.
18:25The residents here know Roberto
18:27and know their rights.
18:29They're in the building?
18:31Yes!
18:32Yes!
18:33Yes!
18:34Yes!
18:35Yes!
18:36Yes!
18:37You know what?
18:38Yes!
18:39Yes!
18:40You know what?
18:41We're going to talk to you.
18:42Let's go!
18:43Come on, we've been doing so long.
18:44We've been doing a lot of time.
18:45We've been doing so much.
18:50Come on, come on, come on.
18:54How are you?
18:55How are you?
18:56How are you?
18:57How are you?
18:58How are you?
18:59How are you?
19:00How are you?
19:01Well, I'm going to explain it clearly.
19:02We're not going to go from here.
19:03Okay?
19:04It's just a joke.
19:05We're going to give you the opportunity, because we're three families,
19:08and we're going to have a house.
19:09Ah, no.
19:10That's something that no one doesn't like it.
19:12I don't like it.
19:13I don't like it.
19:14I don't like it.
19:15I don't like it.
19:16No.
19:17Why don't you give me the money?
19:18Jessica.
19:19No, I don't like it.
19:20No, I don't like it.
19:21How are you doing?
19:22Yes, I don't like it.
19:23I don't like it.
19:24I don't like it.
19:25No, what are you doing here?
19:27What are you doing here?
19:28What are you doing here?
19:33The squatters we saw were mostly families with young children.
19:49One woman was willing to speak to us anonymously.
19:52She says she arrived from Colombia last year with her husband and three daughters.
19:57Within a few weeks, her husband abandoned them.
20:00She said a Moroccan man offered her the apartment for 3,000 euros.
20:05She was going to go to social issues.
20:07Look, I'm going to have a situation on the street with the girls.
20:09I need a bedroom.
20:10And they just told me that there's no room.
20:13There's no room.
20:14There's no room.
20:15There's no room.
20:16There's no room.
20:17There's no room.
20:18There's no room.
20:19They're stalling into the building.
20:35Once again, the residents call the police.
20:36call the police, but 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?
21:06Roberto pleads with the police officer, but to no avail.
21:29He's led down the stairs in handcuffs filmed by his men.
21:36Outside, they surround the police to protest his arrest and continue to argue for the officers
21:45to let their boss go.
21:47But things are only getting more heated.
21:52After a few minutes, the officer uses his pepper spray to get them to back off.
21:56That 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
22:19all this play out and the police are intimidated by the group.
22:23As soon as the police have left, the situation escalates again as Roberto's men and the families
22:29they were trying to evict start screaming insults at each other.
22:33The Desa Cooper men decide to leave, but they'll be back to finish the job.
22:36The Desa Cooper men decide to leave, but they'll be back to finish the job.
22:40Later that evening, Roberto is charged with coercion, which he denies.
22:59Across Spain, gaps in the law have left people and homes exposed to exploitation.
23:15It's clear that government intervention is desperately needed here, but they've given
23:20the green light to yet more hotels being built and that will need more workers.
23:25And it's not clear where those workers will live.
23:30All of this will add yet more pressure to a situation that's already at boiling point.
23:55So,
24:01you are the one you can continue toilling.
24:03We are going to start some of heinous corrections allowed to receive.
24:07This will grow your peers.
24:10Our lives will grow everywhere.
24:11I'm don't disagree.
24:16For your friends,
24:20we allub finoissy.
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