IIbiza’s old town can be seen from the hot, dusty car park, but it’s a world away from the hedonistic clubs and bougainvillea-fringed villas of the Balearic Islands, Ami Mohamed Ali Sitting in his van, patiently brewing the first of three afternoon spirits.
“The first drink is as bitter as life,” the 33-year-old seasonal worker from Western Sahara said, quoting an old saying. “The second is sweet, like love, and the third is soft, like death.” Mohammed said as he adjusted the camp stove and poured liquid from one glass to another to ensure a rich foam. Ali thought about his place without a trace of the bitterness of life. So what if this van was his home for the next six months?
“I really don’t like to complain because I come from a refugee camp where there are thousands of people,” he said. “Plus, my life is much better than many of my compatriots who live in the desert.”
Mohamed Ali is one of a growing number of locals and foreign workers who find themselves excluded from Ibiza’s rental market. Faced with high rents for cramped shared houses, many people have no choice but to live in vans, caravans or tents.
In Ibiza, as in neighboring Mallorca and the Canary Islands, it is becoming increasingly clear that neither the island nor its real estate market can sustain the large number of tourists every year.
Rafael Giménez of Prou Eivissa said: “In the last five years, mainly since the start of the pandemic, there has been a feeling that everything is oversaturated, with more and more tourists overloading roads and public services. ” Ibiza), an organization working to limit the number of visitors and vehicles on the island.
“Ibiza is an island, so the number of homes is limited. The laws of supply and demand have completely broken down.
Tourism accounts for 84% of the island’s economy, and last year a record 3.7 million tourists visited Ibiza and the smaller neighboring island of Formentera, which have a combined population of about 160,000.
Jimenez stresses that Ibiza is enough Nothing against tourism. The problem, he said, was overtourism, which prompted tens of thousands of people to protest in the Canary Islands last month and was behind Pulu’s demonstration of hundreds outside the seat of government in Ibiza on Friday night. Similar protests will be held in Mallorca this weekend.
“Tourism has always been there – it’s always been there when I was growing up – but there’s a balance,” he said. “It’s not that we don’t want tourism; it’s that we don’t want tourism.” That’s not the case. But when it starts to directly affect your life, things get out of control.
Jimenez said the proliferation of vacation rentals and tourist apartments was not the only problem. “The fact that you have more tourists and more tourist real estate means you need more workers from elsewhere to work in shops, bars and restaurants,” he said. “These workers need more housing and the population is booming – not because Ibiza is having babies, but because mass tourism needs more people here.”
Today, he adds, it is common for up to eight people to share a three-room apartment, and rents have almost doubled in the past decade, from 800 or 900 euros a month to at least 1,500 euros – or more. Better than during peak season.
Ivan Fidalgo, a civil officer in Guardia and local coordinator of the Spanish Civil Guard Association, said the lack of affordable housing in Ibiza was making life very difficult for public sector workers, making it difficult for his police force to attract new officers. to replace retired police officers.
“No one wants to be sent here,” he said. “No one in their right mind would want to come to Ibiza to live and work because they can’t find a place to live.”
Fidalgo said this undermined the force’s ability to carry out its duties, adding national guard Dramatic housing solutions were also forced.
“In the summer, you will have colleagues living in vans or caravans like they did last year or in previous years,” he said. “We just feel powerless.”
Federico Faggi, spokesman for the Tenants Union of Ibiza and Formentera, said the situation was the result of uncontrolled tourism, speculation by vulture funds and the recent influx of Nordic This situation is exacerbated by digital nomads, whose high salaries enable them to pay rents that far exceed the income of locals.
Earlier this month, Balearic Islands regional president Marga Prounz acknowledged growing anger over unregulated tourism. “This administration understands that restrictions are necessary,” she said. “We must find a way to ensure that tourism activities coexist with the well-being of the Balearic Islands’ residents.”
Mariano Juan, Vice Chairman of Ibiza’s ruling party suggestionsaid that while he understood what led to Friday’s demonstrations, the problem was not tourism, but illegal tourism. He said Ibiza’s licensed tourism capacity had shrunk from around 109,000 beds to less than 100,000 over the past two decades as smaller hotels closed or reduced the number of rooms to focus on quality rather than quantity.
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“If the association organizing the demonstrations proposes… to reduce the number of legal tourist attractions, then maybe we are not getting to the root of the problem, which is the illegal market,” he said. “There are thousands of ads on Airbnb, hundreds of ads on Booking.com. It’s all been popping up since social networks made it easier to find illegal accommodation.
He added that the key to combating tourist saturation was “a desperate fight against illegal tourists”. He said that to this end, the Ibiza government has been cracking down on illegal landlords and could be fined 40,000 euros just for illegal rental advertising. Juan said suggestion Fines totaling more than 2 million euros have been collected and nearly 200 cases have been filed against illegal tourist apartments on different rental platforms. At the same time, it is working with companies such as Airbnb to root out illegal hosts and using council inspectors to make secret bookings.
Juan also pointed out that in the coming months, the regional council will discuss measures to limit the number of cars taking ferries to the island, and said authorities have been working hard to attract different types of tourists.
“Over the years, suggestion has been committed to promoting family, sports, gastronomy, medical and conference tourism,” he added. “Five or ten years ago, we used to dream of a five- or six-month tourist season, not just three months of sun and partying. We now have a seven-month tourist season… so we Already trying to change tourism patterns.
Meanwhile, the island’s parking lots and campgrounds became home to the physical homeless. Some are even beginning to embrace the freedom of a mobile home, given the financial and emotional strain of cramped shared apartments.
Leonardo Nogueira, a 45-year-old Uruguayan chef who cooks in a private villa, last year traded in his 800-euro-a-month one-bed apartment for a Fiat campervan. So far, he has no regrets and has plenty of room for basic creature comforts: his coffee pot, Yerba Mateguitar, surfboard and bicycle.
“Finding a place to live here is a real problem,” he said. “I know couples here who have broken up but have to continue to live together – one on the couch, one in the bedroom – because they have nowhere to go… There are solar panels, electricity and heating. .I am now a self-sufficient, sustainable snail.
Equally aloof is Felipe Keilis-Carrasco, a musician from Argentina who plays with his friends in clubs, bars, weddings and birthday parties. candela band. After leaving the rental market, he bought an old caravan for €2,000.
“I don’t think it’s that bad,” he said. “This is not a house in the mountains; it’s not the most luxurious place, but compared to the conditions of some seasonal workers – small, terrible rooms – it’s not bad. It’s better than paying 700 euros a month to share a place with 10 other people .
This community spirit is evident in the way residents of the parking lot greet each other when they return home from a long day at work, and the way Mohamed Ali befriends and cooks for Moroccans in a tent next to his van. That way they don’t have to live on sandwiches. Most people worry about being fined and taken away by the police.
However, this calm is not universal. An unnamed Romanian man has now lived in Ibiza for ten years, two of which were in a caravan. “Things are not going to change; they are only going to get worse,” he said. “This is a rich man’s island.”
