Malaga's housing crisis deepens with subletting and shared rooms taking centre stage

Subletting among the people charity organisation Cáritas assists has increased by 60 per cent since 2021 and now concerns one in four households.

The problem is not only that more people are living in properties rented from another tenant and paying inflated rents as a result. Entire families are increasingly having to live in a single room, while friends now often share not just a flat but a bedroom.

The stories of three people Cáritas supports put a human face on the figures and show how Spain's housing crisis is worsening, particularly in places such as Malaga, where its impact is even more acute.

Laura (not her real name) is 27 years old and has been living in a room for a year, ever since she, her partner and their son arrived in Malaga from Venezuela. They pay 650 euros a month for the room. They're not entirely sure who they're paying the rent to, whether it's the owner or the person who actually rented it, because they haven't signed a contract.

"I think it's a sublet because of the amount we pay for the room," she says. They ended up in this room through acquaintances, who told them about this option when they left Venezuela due to the economic crisis that wiped out their business there.

"We had to sell what little we had left to be able to emigrate. I have an eight-year-old son and, obviously, we had neither a decent quality of life nor the financial resources to provide him with stability. Through an acquaintance, we found a rental that would accept us with a child, because we ran into the problem that not all places would rent to us with a minor," Laura says.

The house they live in has three floors, two of which are rented out by the room. On the floor where Laura lives with her partner and child, there are five rooms. According to her, a total of 12 people live there. Hers isn't the only family living in just one room. As far as she knows, there's at least one other family with a 13-14-year-old child.

"We have a double bed, a small bed where my son sleeps, a television, closets, a fan... and that's it. We have to live our lives, so to speak, inside the room or go outside, because there are no common areas," Laura says.

They share a bathroom, a refrigerator and a kitchen, but there's no living room. The space that should be a living room has been converted into a rented room to increase the flat's income.

Not all rooms cost 650 euros. It depends on the size and hers can't be one of the small ones. Living in that situation is difficult for a young child. "He tells me, 'Mom, I want to go out, I'm bored, I don't want to be in here, I feel trapped.'" It will be even worse when the little boy has to study and do homework that's more complicated than what he'd do in primary school.

Mainly for the child's sake, the couple are looking for a studio or a small flat, even if it costs them more than they're currently paying for the room. "They told us it's because of the squatters, that with children they can't evict people, so they won't accept us. But our intention isn't to take over anyone's house," Laura says.

Her husband works doing renovations. She's a part-time manicurist while her son is at school. She has no one to leave him with.

Marina (not her real name) is a 30-year-old Peruvian woman who has been in Spain for just over a year and a half. She has been living with a friend in Malaga for the past nine months. The two share a room. "I didn't come here looking for help, but for opportunities, to grow professionally," she says. She is an interior designer by profession.

She was surprised by how the real estate market works in Spain. "I understand it's for security, but they ask you to reveal so much about your income and lifestyle that it's maddening because you need to find a place to live. They ask for a payslip, but even that's not enough. They require it to be a certain amount because you have to pay a month's deposit or two, the real estate agency's fees..." she says.

"I had never lived with the friend I share a room with before, but I didn't have a job and she suggested we share until I found something. Then we realised that prices keep going up and up and now they don't go below 500 euros. We thought we'd only need to support each other for a couple of months and now it's been eight," she says.

Marina has only found jobs with salaries of 900 euros, from which she has to deduct what she sends back home to help her family, especially her father, who needs special care because he has Alzheimer's. In addition to the high prices, there's another obstacle: landlords prefer to give flats and rooms to students, not to working people like her.

The two friends had to flee the first room they found because the living environment felt unstable and dangerous. There were more people sharing it than they'd initially been told. They ended up in their current flat, which has four bedrooms: the one she shares with her friend (with a double bed, as the landlord hasn't provided single beds), the one a couple live in and the rooms of two girls who don't have to share rooms.

"We don't even have a living or a dining room. The living room is our bedroom, which they've converted into a bedroom," she says. Marina gets along well with the girls she shares the flat with, but she's saddened by the lack of a place to sit and chat. There isn't even enough room for everyone in the kitchen.

"The table only has four chairs and there are six of us. But it's the only place I can sit, because I don't have a living room, I don't have a balcony, I don't have absolutely anything," Marina says.

She also describes problems with cohabitation in the flat. One weekend, when she fell ill, her sister came to take care of her and Marina put her to sleep on a mattress on the floor. The couple Marina shares the flat with complained to the landlord, who then thought there were more people living in the room than agreed upon, which is why he's going to raise their rent from 450 euros to 500. "My sister used that mattress that weekend and now we use it to have a place to sit or leave our things," the young woman says.

SUR also speaks to Tania (not her real name), who left her home due to the domestic violence her ex-boyfriend subjected her to. She first moved to a room for which she paid 450 euros. On top of that, she had to pay three months' rent upfront to move in.

"It was very expensive, yet it was so small. Even I, who am very thin, had to squeeze in sideways. I didn't pay the owner, I paid a broker, so to speak, who showed the property," Tania explains.

But a day came when she suspected she wouldn't be able to keep paying because the benefits she was receiving weren't enough. She left the room and ended up on the street. "I gave 15 days' notice because I didn't know if I was going to keep getting paid and I didn't want to be on bad terms with anyone," Tania says.

In the meantime, she also found out she wasn't registered at the address. Her ex-partner's family had removed her from the house they had shared until the breakup.

"I've had to stay at friends' houses to shower, I;ve slept in the maternity ward, in an ATM vestibule, in a park, with my sister who took me in at her tiny house where I slept on a mattress so small that if I put it on the floor I couldn't open the door…"

Fortunately, some friends who live in Fuente de Piedra have given her shelter and arranged a room for her in Antequera, for which she will pay between 250 and 300 euros, including expenses. She is also waiting to receive the minimum living income, including the back payments due at the end of this month or the beginning of next, which will also provide some relief.

"Things are cheaper in Antequera. In Malaga, everything is incredibly expensive: they ask for up to 600 or 700 euros for a room, so for a flat it's 1,000 or more. There are so many young people in the same situation," she says.

Tania is urging the government to "search their hearts". "I suppose they are parents and wouldn't want to see their children like this. Let's hope that one day we can all live with dignity," she says.

Tania sees a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, but she can't live in an illusion. She knows she's had to distance herself from her surroundings, from the places where she had contacts to find work. "I couldn't be on the street either," she concludes, deciding that moving out of Malaga, as hard as it was, was the right decision.