Patricia Pascual, a telemarketer, 42, and Salva Perales, a construction material salesman, 44, were evicted last week with their three children and the rest of the residents of the six-story brown building at the end of Albal street, in Catarroja. In total, 50 doors, 150 people. His story is repeated regularly these days in the areas devastated by dana. As the garages of the blocks – in the building on Albal Street, thanks above all to the work of the neighbors and volunteers, who used a hydraulic pump lent by Pascual’s cousin from Teruel -, a municipal architect comes to check the state of the building. In the case of his block, the technician saw that some pillars were damaged and the steel bars inside could be seen, and he ordered the evacuation as long as it was not propped up and the repair endorsed by an architect.
The couple, their children and the other neighbors were able to return on Friday, something that is also common: many of the evictions of this type are lasting about three days. But by the time some manage to return, another building has been emptied, so that the population evicted for this reason in Catarroja alone (30,000 inhabitants) is around 200 people and the impression of the Councilor for Urban Planning, Martí Raga, is that unfortunately they will increase by As technicians inspect more properties. And a part of them will not be able to return. At the moment there are 11 single-family homes on Tribunal de las Aguas Street that have structural damage that seems difficult to repair, although work is still being done on them. In total, the Insurance Compensation Consortium has received more than the October 29 storm, although this figure includes very different situations.
On Thursday, in front of their building, Pascual and Perales, who bought their home in 2015 and had been sleeping at relatives’ houses since Monday, did not even want to consider having to leave their home permanently and look for a rental. After insisting, Perales settled: “First, in Catarroja there are hardly any houses to rent. And then, with the expenses that we have ahead of us – we have lost, my parents have lost all the furniture and with the pension they receive we are going to have to help them, we have three children, and the girl’s orthodontics alone is worth a fortune – pay a rental would be impossible. “We would have to ask for a loan.”
Those affected by the dana who have been forced to leave their homes and have looked for rental homes in their own municipalities are finding themselves being asked for sums that they cannot pay. Skyrocketing prices that, according to various sources, are a product of the previous real estate escalation ―with a ―and a certain opportunism in which, given the situation of need, some are seeing the opportunity to ask for more. The administrative collapse of the City Councils, which have all their technicians checking for damage to homes and, when they finish, will have them focused on authorizing thousands of renovation works, also threatens to paralyze all the licenses for new homes, aggravating the situation.
One of those who saw that he could not afford the current rents in his town was Javier – who asks not to be identified -, a business advisor, who lived with his wife and son in a renovated town house on Sant Josep street. from Paiporta. “About a week after the dana we looked and only found eight apartments for rent. They cost between 900 and 1,200 euros. In the end, we went to another town,” he says. In the same town, the one hardest hit by the flood, with at least 70 deaths, Amparo Rodríguez, 27 years old, said on Thursday that the night before, as she had discussed with her boyfriend, she looked at possible rentals on the Idealista portal. He found two, one for 950 euros and another for 1,200 euros per month. “It seems to me that they have become abusive, and more so given the economic situation here, where, for example, almost all businesses are closed,” says Rodríguez, an employee in the health sector.
To Carlos Martínez, 57 years old, 16 of them working in a real estate agency in Paiporta, the prices that Rodríguez saw – and that this newspaper verified the next morning – seemed more expensive than those before the dana. “If they are like that, they have risen. Before, a third floor without an elevator could cost 600 euros. And a semi-new apartment from 2010 with three bedrooms, about 900″, secures at the door of his house. The office where he worked was completely devastated by the dana, which was carried to the door. Martínez does not believe that market logic – the destruction caused by floods has increased the demand for accommodation while reducing the potential supply – should operate in a situation like this. “On the contrary, they should be supportive and lower prices,” he says.
Climbs
The main housing rental web portals do not currently offer information on possible fluctuations in rents in the area affected by the storm. The latest Idealista report that analyzes the situation in Valencia is from October 2024, and therefore does not cover its impact. Among the municipalities affected by the flood, it only provides data from Catarroja, which reflects a price increase of 33% in the last five years – from 600 to 800 euros. The vice president of the College of Real Estate Agents of Valencia, Vicente Díez, warns, for his part, that rental aid for those affected by the damage can encourage increases: “We fear that there will be someone who will raise prices, it can happen, because It has happened on other occasions.” In this case, subsidies of up to 800 euros have been announced. Díez adds that, at the same time, there are also owners “who are providing facilities to those affected by the damage.”
The latter do not include, at the moment, Matilde Ortí, 57 years old, a resident of Catarroja, whom her landlord demanded last week to immediately leave the Catarroja apartment in which she had been living for three years with a verbal contract, and anxiously asks his interlocutor if he knows of someone who rents a room for, at most, 300 euros. Not even Teddy Shiferaw, who was a janitor at the Lluís Vives public school in Massanassa when the Poyo ravine overflowed with his wife and two girls, which was integrated into the school grounds, which, in principle, will be completely demolished. Shiferaw is Massanassa’s municipal janitor – he got the position 20 years ago – and maintains his job. But now with his salary (which does not reach 1,300 euros) he cannot pay rent either in the town or in those around it. “I keep trying, I’m already looking anywhere, but there’s no way, I’m desperate,” he commented this Thursday by phone from Quart de Poblet, where the four are currently staying at a friend’s house.
