Sitting on a bench facing Barcelona's Sagrada Familia, Youssef Benkhay recounts his life story, from leaving Aitaddou Zaguura at age 16 to now, at 24, about to complete a vocational training course in electrical, gas, and plumbing installation and working at the Foundation's social enterprise. "Learning the language, going back to school, finding myself in a place so different from my village of 20 houses in the Sahara, being far from home," the young man explains when asked about the difficulties he has faced to finally have a more or less stable future.

The reality for young people in Spain is harsh: they need to spend more than 90% of their income on rent, and more than 35% if they decide to share an apartment. These two figures surely explain why almost eight out of ten young Catalans between the ages of 16 and 34 cannot leave their family home, according to the latest report from the Emancipation Observatory of the Spanish Youth Council. In fact, the emancipation rate in this age group in Catalonia is only 17.6%.

Would you like to buy an apartment or a house but don't have any savings? If you're between 18 and 35 years old and live in Catalonia, you can now apply for the Emancipation Loan, which can finance up to €50,000 toward the down payment on your first home.

Leaving home remains impossible for most young people. Job insecurity (high unemployment, temporary contracts and low wages) and difficulties in accessing housing are the main reasons that prevent people between 16 and 29 from leaving the family home. This is the complaint launched this Tuesday by the Spanish Youth Council (CJE), which has presented in Parliament the data of the latest report of the Youth Emancipation Observatory, corresponding to the last half of 2020. According to the document, only 16% of young Spaniards are emancipated, the lowest figure since 1999 and which in the last year has fallen by three points (from 18.5% to the current figure). The remaining 84% of young people still live with their parents.