Ibiza locals living in cars as party island sees rents soar
Ibiza locals living in cars as party island sees rents soar
"All the work you could want, but there isn't anywhere to live," say those struggling on the island.
César Nebrera pours out a cup of coffee he has brewed on a stove in the boot of his car. The old green Kia saloon sits in the shade of a carob tree just off the main road near Ibiza Town.
"I miss the basic things that make life comfortable, like being able to stand up in your own home, being able to cook properly, or even open a drawer and pull out some socks," he says.
"Those are the kinds of things that you miss out on when you live in a car."
César's Kia has been his home for the past three years. He works as a chef, but with rental costs on the Spanish island of Ibiza having spiralled, he cannot afford to live in a flat.
"In Ibiza, accommodation is very expensive, and it's getting more and more expensive," he says. "And the cost of renting is completely out of kilter with what you earn. So living like this is an alternative. It's less comfortable, but it allows me to keep living on the island."
Ibiza is one of the four main Mediterranean islands that make up Spain's Balearic Islands. The others are Majorca, Menorca, and Formentera.
Many local professionals in Ibiza are living in similarly precarious conditions because of high rental costs. Last year, the IGC, a representative body of the civil guard police force, said that "three or four" of its officers were living in vehicles on the island.
Other locals have resorted to living in tents, or in extremely basic shared accommodation.
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Honestly, locals should just leave. Places there will quickly realize if they want to continue operating there they will have to pay what is a livible wage for the area.
Until someone stops doing their laundry, cooking their food, or doing the gardening, they might never realize how untenable their situation is.
- Where will the locals go? They have networks of support, professional networks, etc. those are hard to replicate elsewhere?
- How will they afford to leave and establish themselves? This is very hard to do when you already live close to poverty.
- What's to stop the rich folk from bringing in cheap "temporary foreign labour" that is housed in the same conditions? Dishes still get washed, it's just the poor locals and the exploited TFWs that lose out.
- Anywhere else. If they're living in a tent, they don't have any networks of support.
- ...as opposed to how will they afford to stay there? Which they can't. Take your car or tent and leave. They don't just let people be homeless in Europe, right?
- Nothing. That's what they want. That's what will happen. They've succeeded in creating enough of a global wealth gap that for a minimum of the next few generations, there will always be enough people that are poor enough that they would happily take functional indentured servitude on a rich persons island mansion. They've sucked almost everything from the middle class that its no longer a necessary class. At this point anyone between extreme wealth and extreme poverty is only getting in the way of what the rich want by demanding things like being able to live above extreme poverty.
Anywhere else… It never ceases to amaze me how someone can feel like they know better than the people going through the situation.