Opinion piece : In Fraga we have a housing problem by Alfonso Callejero
My phone lights up; it's a coworker sending a message to a group of health center workers: "Hi! A girl starts tomorrow for this summer, do you know of any apartments or rooms that anyone is renting?"
Anyone who has come to work in Fraga from elsewhere faces a challenge. Finding an apartment in our town is neither easy nor simple, and it often becomes a near-perfect dream, like finding El Dorado.
There isn't a wide selection of apartments for rent in Fraga, and anyone who came to work here years ago knows this is a real problem. So, we start using our contacts to find an apartment or a room for the new teacher, nurse, or orderly.
However, this lack of available properties isn't just a reality for those looking to rent from outside the area. Any young person wanting to start a new life and become independent will encounter this shortage of apartments in Fraga and is often forced to pay exorbitant prices compared to the available options in our city.
Making housing affordable in a town like Fraga doesn't depend solely on the Town Hall. First, the Regional Government must have the political will to implement the national Housing Law passed by the previous progressive administration to control housing prices in our town. Furthermore, the Government of Aragon must stop incentivizing new construction and continue promoting the rehabilitation of existing homes, as it did in previous administrations. This solution would also allow for the rehabilitation and refurbishment of many houses in our historic center, attracting residents and encouraging them to settle in this area of Fraga.
Furthermore, we can demand that the City Council invest part of its savings in creating a pool of affordable social housing for young people by acquiring, rehabilitating and conditioning empty housing or by taking over those that are declared to be in ruins and the City Council assumes the cost of the demolition, in order to offer it as affordable rental for young people and families.
In this situation, is the solution really to build more housing? Aren't there enough empty houses or homes in many areas of Fraga that could be renovated? Is it necessary to make Fraga more sprawling while many areas and streets remain empty? Or is construction solely intended to be a business for real estate developers and banks?
In short, why not invest in rehabilitating the empty houses and homes in Fraga so they can be offered at a reasonable price?
