Socialists express their surprise after mayor hands over social housing to resident who asked for it

Continuing their promise to be a vocally strong opposition to the tripartite government team, the PSPV-PSOE Xàbia has issued a statement in which it accuses mayor Rosa Cardona of having handed over a social housing unit to a resident instead of using it to help alleviate the housing problem in the town.

The statement opens with the claim that while the pace of private construction in Xàbia continued to climb to historic highs – “this year it has grown by 25% and cranes are visible throughout the area” – the local government team led by Rosa Cardona was doing nothing to address the problem of housing for young people and low-income families in the town.

“Young people leave, low-income families cannot afford a house, workers have to give up living in Xàbia and at the same time the town hall returns more than 8.000 euros in rental aid to the Generalitat Valenciana because the requirements have not been met”.

It then explained that “if that were not enough, mayor Rosa Cardona acknowledged in the plenary session that Xàbia will not buy a social housing unit (at a price of 155,000 euros) because she has decided to give it directly to a resident who went to speak to her. For the socialists, this is something unheard of. And serious, very serious”.

“Now Xàbia has lost the opportunity to have a home (which tomorrow could go back on sale for much more money) to alleviate the needs of young people, people at risk of exclusion, victims of gender violence, the elderly, etc. A property that would have always been municipal and social – given to anyone who needs it, but under public technical criteria – and which is now lost ‘because someone went to talk to Rosa Cardona’”.

The statement concluded with the reminder that “the PP government is also pushing ahead with its idea of selling municipal plots worth 288,000 million euros for 1.4 million euros so that companies can put up for sale ‘social’ flats that will require candidates to take out expensive mortgages instead of the protected rent that was envisaged in the PSOE project”.