Madrid (EFE).- The increase in the price of housing generates an economic overload for families with small children and 8.4% of these households cannot pay their mortgage or rent on time, double the EU average , while it is estimated that between 70 and 80% of the families that suffer an eviction have dependent children.
These are some of the conclusions of the report “Aquí no hay quien viva”, prepared by Save the Children, which analyzes the difficulties that families have to pay for a house and which reveals that Spain is the third country in the European Union with the highest percentage of households that have experienced delays in rent or mortgage payments -6.5%-, only behind Greece and Ireland, and above the European average (3.2%).
The increase in the price of housing affects 4 out of 10 households with dependent sons or daughters who live for rent and who have to allocate at least 30% of their income to paying for housing, which means having less Budget for other needs.
Families with young children suffer the most from this overload and, in fact, it is estimated that between 70% and 80% of evictions -almost 700,000 in Spain since 2008- affect families with children and adolescents, according to United Nations data.
This is a “very large and abnormal figure in the EU context”, which represents the “most extreme representation of residential exclusion”, as assured during the presentation of the report by the director of this NGO, Andrés Conde, who has recalled that since 2019, the presence of children in the home is grounds for suspension of eviction.
Two out of every ten minors live in unsanitary houses
But in addition, Save the Children warns that two out of ten children and adolescents -21.4%- live in unhealthy houses, which have leaks in the roof, humidity in the walls, the floor or the foundations, or rot in the window frames or the floor.
The report indicates that 7.2% of homes do not meet the minimum conditions to guarantee health; 2 out of 10 minors live in places with noise pollution; almost 1 in 10 boys and girls live in overcrowded homes in Ceuta, Melilla and Catalonia and 13.1% of minors in Spain live in a home that cannot keep their home at an adequate temperature.
A situation that, according to Conde, “affects their physical and mental health, affects their growth, development, school performance and their safety.”
The majority profile: single mothers with dependent children
According to Save the Children, the face of a family struggling to maintain their home is that of a single mother with dependent children.
In this sense, he recalls that in Spain there are 158,000 single-parent rental households -mostly headed by women- who bear an “often unaffordable” burden.
On average, these families allocate 200 euros per month more than what they could allocate if we establish the threshold of 30% of income as the limit of the maximum payment for housing (without counting supplies).
With this panorama, the NGO points out that a complementary aid of up to 200 euros could alleviate the burden that housing entails for all of them. To assume it, an annual budget of approximately 380 million euros would be necessary.
Among the causes of this situation, Save the Children points out that Spain has one of the smallest social housing stocks in Europe, since it barely reaches 2.5% of the total, which is a quarter of the European average (9 .3% of the park).
“A million and a half more subsidized homes would be needed to meet social needs,” says the director of Social and Political Incidence of this NGO, Catalina Perazzo.
Added to this is the fact that the scope of housing aid is “extremely reduced”. Thus, of the 1.6 million families with children in poverty, approximately 310,000 suffered delays in housing payments, but only 25,000 received a housing benefit in 2020.
More public housing and direct aid
To improve this situation, Save the Children calls for an increase in the financing of housing policies that protect access for families with minors in vulnerable situations and automate access to direct housing aid for families receiving the IMV, minimum income or similar .
It recommends betting on the purchase or rehabilitation to expand the public supply of housing, guarantee the indefinite qualification of public housing, or promote alliances between the public and private sectors that benefit families with lower incomes.
It also calls for tax discounts for improving the energy rating of buildings and reduced VAT for renovating homes and improving coordination between the judicial system and social services.
In addition, it emphasizes that when there are minors at risk of eviction, the vulnerability report must be mandatory and not optional, so that it is taken into account before making any decision that affects them.
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