PSOE Proposes €34 Million to Boost Tenerife's Affordable Housing Efforts

The PSOE party is proposing to allocate 34 million euros to the Tenerife Island Council to boost its housing responsibilities. The socialists aim to change the upcoming year's budget to stop the council from relying on the Canary Islands Government for affordable housing without developing its own projects.

Aarón Afonso, the spokesperson for the Socialist Group on the Island Council, stated that the biggest issue for Tenerife residents is the difficulty in finding affordable housing. He believes the current budget for 2026 doesn't do enough to fix this. Therefore, he explained, they are suggesting a plan worth over 34 million euros to make housing a top priority for the island.

Afonso highlighted a perceived lack of investment, especially since the Canary Islands Government passed a decree in February 2024. This decree, for the first time, gave island councils the power to address the housing emergency by promoting the construction of affordable homes.

However, Afonso pointed out that the Tenerife Island Council has not yet started building its own affordable housing stock. While it has provided subsidies to local municipalities through programs like Activa Vivienda and Activa Suelo, it hasn't focused on creating an island-wide housing supply.

Afonso also criticized an agreement with the Canary Islands Housing Institute (Icavi). This agreement involves the Island Council overseeing seven housing developments on Tenerife as part of the Canary Islands Housing Plan 2020-2025. He argued that Icavi or Visocan, the regional housing company, should be managing these projects. Instead, he claims, the Tenerife Island Council is doing the work due to the Canary Islands Government's perceived inability to do so, and is even funding over 42% of these projects with local resources.

Afonso summarized that the Tenerife Island Council is essentially doing the Canary Islands Government's work on the island, while failing to develop its own housing stock. He noted that other islands are seeing their housing plans moved forward, albeit with challenges, directly by the regional government. This allows their respective island councils to focus their resources on their own housing initiatives.

Some island councils, like Gran Canaria, are actively managing housing through a Housing Consortium. Others, such as El Hierro, La Palma, and Lanzarote, may not have specific management bodies but are using their own funds to buy land or properties to make available to Icavi.

According to data from the regional Ministry in early October, the Canary Islands Government, through Icavi or Visocan, is only building fourteen housing developments across the archipelago. One of these is in Tenerife, a project for 65 homes in the San Antonio neighborhood of La Orotava, which was approved in 2022 and put out to tender in May 2023. This means no new projects have been initiated by the Canary Islands Government on the island for nearly two and a half years. The other thirteen developments are spread across Lanzarote (201 homes), Fuerteventura (77 homes), La Palma (64 homes), and Gran Canaria (126 homes).

Afonso stressed that regardless of what other island councils are doing, the focus should be on what Tenerife's Island Council can achieve within its legal powers and the island's economic situation. He believes investment in housing needs to be a decisive priority, rather than just taking on the role of executing the regional government's housing plan.

The socialists' housing proposals include nine main points totaling 34 million euros. The first is the Tencasa Island Program, with 20 million euros, to acquire land or buildings for affordable rental housing and to build up an island housing stock.

To manage this housing stock, the PSOE suggests creating a new public company, Visoten, to oversee development, land management, and a stable island housing supply.

A third program, Housing Rehabilitation, would receive three million euros to provide direct aid to municipalities for home improvements and accessibility, aiming to increase the usable housing stock.

Two programs are dedicated to rental assistance: 1.5 million euros for young people and 300,000 euros for vocational training and university students, particularly those from outside the metropolitan area.

The PSOE also proposes half a million euros for the Intergenerational Housing Office, which aims to encourage cohabitation between students and the elderly to combat loneliness, financial hardship, and housing access issues.

Additionally, the socialists are requesting funding for the Activa Suelo II program (1.5 million euros) and Activa Vivienda II (three million euros), which are not currently in the 2026 budget. These programs would help municipalities acquire land for public housing and support the construction and renovation of affordable rental properties.

Finally, the proposal includes 540,000 euros to hire nine additional staff members for the Island Council's Housing department, as Afonso believes the current team is insufficient to meet the proposed challenges. He concluded that after nearly two years since the decree came into effect, the Island Council has achieved "zero homes built, zero homes delivered, zero projects drafted, and zero land acquired."

Another example of the PSOE's 153 proposed amendments to the budget concerns what they describe as "disastrous waste management" in Tenerife. A recent meeting between socialist mayors and the Insular Executive Committee identified key municipal priorities for the upcoming budget, focusing on urgent issues affecting residents, such as waste management, water issues, and essential infrastructure works.