Social hostels financed with part of the tourist tax: the Barcelona mayor's proposal

BarcelonaBarcelona's public ombudsman proposes that the tourism sector help improve the municipal model for emergency temporary accommodation. In a report presented this Tuesday, David Bondia advocates for a "paradigm shift" in a system that, he claims, has proven "ineffective" in meeting the goal of hostels and guesthouses as a temporary and emergency resource for vulnerable people who are evicted to spend a few months before returning to housing.

Bondia points out that the housing crisis that the major European cities share is due above all to the fact that the temporary housing market has eaten up the ordinary one, something that has led to the disappearance of supply and an unprecedented rise in prices. With this premise, the trustee ventures to ask the tourism sector to assume part of the social responsibility and become "part of the solution" to improving the service, which satisfies neither the beneficiaries nor the City Council.

The trustee indicates that one of the solutions would be tourist tax collected by hotels for each stay and which is currently being debated in the Catalan Parliament. On the one hand, that a specific proportion ("an aliquot part") of this tax be directly dedicated to paying for the places that the City Council hires from private hostels and guesthouses, which represent an annual allocation of 38 million euros for the City Council and, on the other hand, that another proportional part is managed by the hotel sector itself because it offers places in its establishments to provide solutions to cases of "urgent vulnerability", as it already did during the collapse of the Carmen tunnelthe Covid health crisis.

Another possible way to expand this budget through private collaboration is to take advantage of "non-reckless economic reductions in public service tenders" to allocate them to social services such as temporary accommodation facilities. These are reasonable discounts offered by a company when bidding for a public tender, relative to the initial price, and which do not jeopardize the quality of the service provided.

Beyond the strictly tourism sector, in the Bondia report, it is also requested that organizations such as Fira de Barcelona and the Port of Barcelona "be actively involved" in strengthening temporary accommodation facilities. These are institutions that transcend the city's borders, and this is another proposal: improving the network of hostels and guesthouses serving social services must be addressed from the metropolitan level and not through municipal-by-municipal solutions. Therefore, it calls for the creation of a metropolitan temporary accommodation fund and, to increase the supply of temporary housing, to strengthen the collaboration of the public sector and third-sector entities so that they can contribute their housing stock and assist in the planning of social policies.

People with voice and vote

Bondia wants to change not only how and who finances the ATUs, but also advocates for a mental shift so that these pensions are no longer seen exclusively as "simple logistical management of places" and become services that promote comprehensive intervention with users. They exceed the planned six-month stay because they simply cannot access even the subsidized housing market. 41% of users are single-parent families And there are also people with disabilities and complicated social situations that make rapid labor and social integration difficult for them.

The reform proposed by the trustee requires that the families accommodated cease to be considered "passive recipients" and instead be "active agents" who should be allowed to participate in the planning and management of services. Complaints have reached the trustee's office about poor hygiene or about housing families in spaces without kitchens or that are too small. These complaints rarely receive a prompt response from the council. In this regard, Bondia is committed to establishing a complaints collection service that responds quickly, as well as involving users in the "co-governance" of the spaces, a way—the report states—that would serve to "regenerate confidence in the system" and the perception that the City Council offers them "decent treatment."