Malaga family earns 1,800 euros and cannot find home to rent before eviction

Soledad Troncoso is 66 years old and lives on Calle Mauricio Moro Paret in Malaga with her 95-year-old mother María, her 68-year-old brother Ramón and her 39-year-old son Álex. They have lived in this rented flat for the last 18 years, always paying their rent and utilities on time.

Their current monthly rent is around 700 euros, but they have to leave the flat because the owners, who are also vulnerable themselves, need the property for their own use, as they want to return to the city.

Soledad works at the TechPark and earns 1,200 a month euros, although she is currently on sick leave due to depression. In addition to this income, the household relies on the 600-euro pension María receives. She needs a ventilator to survive due to severe respiratory problems.

Soledad's brother, Ramón, has not yet been able to apply for benefits because he is a migrant who has returned to Spain (originally Spanish, he went to Venezuela and then came back), while Álex has been awaiting a dependency assessment since 2023.

This brings the household's total income to 1,800 euros, which has proven insufficient for them to find a rental property in Malaga. The family have to vacate their flat this Thursday and, if nothing changes, they will be homeless. At the moment, they have no alternative housing.

As Soledad said, the eviction process began two years ago. The moratorium on evictions, implemented through social safety nets, halted the proceedings until about a month ago when Congreso overturned the measure.

The family had the opportunity to speak at the last city council meeting to explain their situation and request public assistance. Mayor Francisco de la Torre pledged to help the family by offering an alternative.

"I'm not asking for free housing. I want to pay for it. We can pay 700 or 800 euros, but I simply can't justify the rest of my income that real estate agencies are asking for to rent me a flat right now," the woman said.

According to Carmen, the Malaga real estate market has no properties at prices she can afford. When they go to real estate agencies, they are required to have income such that the monthly rent doesn't exceed a third of it. So, given the current rental prices in Malaga, they are required to have monthly income of between 3,000 and 4,000 euros.

Carmen's case illustrates how the public assistance currently available is ineffective: the municipal housing institute has granted the family support that covers up to 30 per cent of the rent for four years or another form of assistance that covers the first two or three months' rent.

The problem is that, to be eligible for this aid, one has to have found a flat. "We just can't find one. Furthermore, real estate agencies don't accept the assistance because sometimes the payment can be delayed. On top of that, insurance companies sometimes restrict the types of tenants they accept," Carmen said.

On Monday morning, the family received support from Pilar Usón of the Malaga mortgage victims platform (PAH), who stated that "limits must be set" in the market.

"It's unacceptable that they, with a salary and the intention to pay, can't find housing for 600 or 800 euros," Usón said.

"People from Malaga are being forced to leave the city. It's not enough for me that they have to move to a small town, because Soledad has a 95-year-old mother who needs medical care and she has to come to Malaga to work every day. It's no use for the municipal services to say they offer assistance, because there are hundreds of people receiving rental assistance who aren't going anywhere, because they're awarded the aid, but there's no housing available," she noted.

Nico Sguiglia, co-spokesperson for the Con Málaga municipal group, was also with the family. He recalled that the mayor had promised not to abandon them.

"We are here to tell him that they will be homeless on Thursday. This shouldn't be happening: due to speculation, they have no access to rental housing. We demand that they be given alternative housing. They are not asking for charity. They are asking for decent and affordable housing, like so many other families who are being left homeless after the collapse of the social safety net," Sguiglia said.

Sguiglia pointed out that, since the social safety net is weak, there are four or five eviction cases like Soledad's every week.

"It is the responsibility of the authorities to do everything possible to prevent this from happening. If the authorities don't intervene in this case, if the mayor and Malaga city council don't intervene, next Thursday morning, they will have no other option but to live in their car. Something is very wrong with a society that allows a 95-year-old woman or a family in general, to have to live in a car. This, in an affluent city, a city with record budgets, a city that prides itself on being the great Malaga. The family have an income of 1,800 euros and even so, they find it impossible to access decent housing on the market," he said.

Sguiglia demanded, in addition to intervention in the case of Soledad and her family, the implementation of mediation mechanisms to help people find decent and affordable housing. His proposal includes the creation of an intermediary service to facilitate the entry of reasonably priced housing onto the market, as well as inspection mechanisms to combat abuses in the real estate market, "because many of the conditions currently imposed by real estate agencies are outright illegal".

"They do not comply with regulations regarding the draconian conditions they demand of tenants," he stated.

If the family do not have alternative housing by Thursday, municipal groups and platforms have called a demonstration for that morning to raise more awareness.