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Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

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Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#721

Post by s1artibartfast »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #702
s1artibartfast wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is the experience of the vast majority of renters. It's not too bad. I think it is terrible. I like to be productive and crate value. Absolutely miserable without it. I hated being a renter for this reason. >And something like "you can own X amount of house" doesn't require going anywhere near communism. There are so many better ways to solve this problem than putting a cap on value creation.

> I like to be productive and crate value. You can create value in the 99% of the world that isn't attached to your house. Also a more conservative set of rules, like the limits I was talking about, would still let you own a house and upgrade it a lot in a way that you fully own. > There are so many better ways to solve this problem than putting a cap on value creation. Does "value creation" here specifically mean ad…

Lets assume this rule is only about living spaces, and not other assets and infrastructure.

I like building and improving houses. I have one in the bay area I work to improve.

I have built a mountain home in the Sierra Nevada, and am working on a desert home in Nevada. These take nothing away from anyone. They were empty land surrounded by more empty parcels before I did something with them.

There is no shortage of land and nothing is stopping someone else from doing the same. When I die, they will probably be sold off, and there will be more options. until then, nobody is worse off. I have thought about renting them out, which is still better than if they never existed.

Who am I hurting, and why should I be forced to sell?

If there was a law I couldnt own three houses, I simply wouldnt build them.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#722

Post by throw10920 »

kerkeslager wrote: post #676
s1artibartfast wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

> Interesting, so you do support housing the homeless, just as long as you get to take away their freedom.

Please review the HN guidelines before posting further - this is not acceptable here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#723

Post by [deleted] »

kerkeslager wrote: post #657
s1artibartfast wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an ahistorical perspective. For most of human history, you could be killed for putting a yurt or hut in someone else's land. Even chimps will kill others for infringing on territory. There were breif periods where humans entered virgin land, but these people migrated because other land and resources were spoken for. >Private property is just a legitimized theft, because it leaves some people without access to…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#724

Post by jjav »

kerkeslager wrote: post #660
jjav wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd prefer they stole from the people actually causing the problem, the rich who buy up housing and make it unaffordable. If you actually want to protest the system this is what you should do. Go occupy the vacant summer homes of rich politicians and CEOs.

I think people angry about squatters are thinking that squatters are squatting for political reasons, because for people angry about squatters, this is a political issue. For squatters, this isn't primarily a political issue, it's primarily a survival issue. Squatting in the summer house of a CEO does solve your survival need for shelter, but it leaves a bunch of your other survival needs unmet because you're far awa…

> So I'd guess that's why squatters aren't targeting these properties.

The primary reason they won't target homes of the rich or well connected is because they can afford to be in areas with private security that will make any squatting attempts a complete non-starter.

Thus squatters can only harm the middle class homeowner who can't afford such protection measures.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#725

Post by ben_jones »

cromka wrote: post #674
shanemhansen wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be surprising to be on the other end of something and see the lack of sympathy. I went on a group hike once and somehow ended up telling people that my house had been broken into. It was a bummer. Actual monetary damages about 10k, but so many little gifts and heirlooms that were irreplaceable. It's hard to express the sense of violation. They also stole some of my wife's underwear which was just gross. Someon…

People also maliciously ignore the obvious fact that living in a society which is lenient towards burglary automatically attracts opportunists, who were not actually poor in the first place.

People like watering down good versus bad as if it were binary. They don’t care to think a good person can sometimes be bad, or that many crimes are crimes of opportunity, because then they’d have to question their own goodness

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#726

Post by petre »

jjav wrote: post #586
kaskakokos wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Spain, I have friends from both ends of the spectrum: those speculating with houses and those who cannot afford to buy one. We can blame the okupas, calling them lazy if that suits you. But we are missing half the story if we don't consider the other end of the spectrum: people buying property purely for speculative investment. For example, consider the housing crisis in Majorca [1]. Since we have enough mo…

> But we are missing half the story if we don't consider the other end of the spectrum No, not really. Theft is not the answer. Consider laws restricting how many houses a person can own, or maybe an increasing property tax on each unit. These are good solutions. Condoning theft has no other side to the story, it's always wrong.

> Consider laws restricting how many houses a person can own, or maybe an increasing property tax on each unit. These are good solutions.

So they set up a company and buy the property using the company. Pressure is always the answer, whichever tactics are used.

I understand the issue in Mallorca after visiting Mabella. Also the locals don't have to live on a holiday island, but they can elect pressure the speculators and their clients. Somehow this doesn't happen in Greece.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#727

Post by MrJohz »

thegrim33 wrote: post #711
kerkeslager wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people angry about squatters are thinking that squatters are squatting for political reasons, because for people angry about squatters, this is a political issue. For squatters, this isn't primarily a political issue, it's primarily a survival issue. Squatting in the summer house of a CEO does solve your survival need for shelter, but it leaves a bunch of your other survival needs unmet because you're far awa…

> The reality is that while squatters might hold political beliefs, few people would choose to squat if they had other housing options Here in Seattle, time and time again, studies are done which show the majority of homeless, when offered shelter, turn it down and prefer to live on the streets. Which seems to completely contradict your claim that they would make use of housing options. Maybe Seattle homeless are dif…

Interestingly, they've found the opposite effect in a number of places in Europe, which suggests that the Seattle homeless population really are quite different, or that there's something odd in how these sorts of policies are being implemented in Seattle. I suspect the latter: you're talking about temporary shelter accommodation, but the policy of Housing First is to give homeless people permanent flats and houses of their own. I can understand why people would not be interested in the former but would accept the latter.

See for example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_First https://thebetter.news/housing-first-finland-homelessness/

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#728

Post by petre »

thegrim33 wrote: post #711
kerkeslager wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people angry about squatters are thinking that squatters are squatting for political reasons, because for people angry about squatters, this is a political issue. For squatters, this isn't primarily a political issue, it's primarily a survival issue. Squatting in the summer house of a CEO does solve your survival need for shelter, but it leaves a bunch of your other survival needs unmet because you're far awa…

> The reality is that while squatters might hold political beliefs, few people would choose to squat if they had other housing options Here in Seattle, time and time again, studies are done which show the majority of homeless, when offered shelter, turn it down and prefer to live on the streets. Which seems to completely contradict your claim that they would make use of housing options. Maybe Seattle homeless are dif…

Maybe the shelter comes with strings attached, like no booze on the premisses. This is a nonstarter for people living on the street where they can freely drink booze.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#729

Post by petre »

kerkeslager wrote: post #616
solids wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the housing crisis is related to the lack of legal security that owners have, which severely reduced the offer and obviously increased the prices. The housing law that the current government passed wasn’t very clever…

Wait so lack of legal security reduced supply... by what mechanism? How do you think this works?

Your apartment is being squatted and you're selling it at a discount, not being prepared to navigate the legal landscape. The buyers evict the squatters, fix it up and list it at a higher than market price. They do this as a commercial enterprise.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#730

Post by petre »

misja111 wrote: post #607
ghostDancer wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Spain there are lots of empty apartments, from the bubble and IIRC are more than 2 million empty , but prices are still going up, most of the market is on the hands of foreign funds who are emptying the cities with their prices. There's a lot of speculation with housing in Spain. Not to talk about the campaign in the media about squatting, sowing fear continuously. The supply is artificially being held by the owne…

Then the government should make it less attractive for speculators to hold those homes, e.g. by introducing taxes for empty properties. And on the other hand they could make it more attractive for them to rent them out, e.g. by improving owner's rights.

> e.g. by introducing taxes for empty properties

So the speculators set up a company, buy the property and list it on AirBnB at several times the market price. Now it's not an empty property, it's a business. Business is slow so they only have to bother with guests during spikes in demend.

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