When traumatologist Mònica Pèlach left Girona to work at the Cerdanya cross-border hospital, in November 2022, she never thought it would be so difficult to find rental housing.
The little music I heard was always the same. “We have nothing for year-round rentals, only seasonal sales or rentals,” he was told by the dozen real estate agencies she approached.
Three months after starting this journey, the flute sounded and she was offered a house in Llívia for which she and her partner paid 1,200 euros per month. “Actually it was the only rental home we found, we had no alternatives,” explains Mònica, currently on maternity leave.
The family feels very comfortable in the house, but continues searching. “We live in a very expensive region because of the few services it offers, many prices are focused on tourism,” says Jordi, his partner.
Like Mònica, other workers at the Puigcerdà hospital have also experienced firsthand the problems of living in a region with a shortage of long-term rental housing. Mònica explains the case of a colleague of hers, from Mallorca, who has only found a roof where she can live until the month of November, when she will be kicked out to make way for ski tourism.
To respond to the lowest echelon of the health sector – the students in practice –, the Puigcerdà Hospital Foundation has enabled a floor of the Primary Care Center (CAP) where they can stay and a floor in the old teachers’ building .
The increase in prices, added to the boom in apartments for tourist use, which have multiplied by 100 in a decade, the enormous weight of second homes (63.3% of the homes in the region are not primary) and the fact The fact that owners prefer to rent for the season rather than rent for the entire year has meant that finding a roof over their heads is a chimera.
“The majority of owners opt for seasonal rentals because in a few months they charge the same as a long-term rental, there is less wear and tear on the property and late payment is non-existent,” says Enric Quílez, president of the Cerdanya Research Group. .
This pressure makes many workers choose to live in nearby regions such as Berguedà, Alt Urgell or Alta Cerdanya, areas where prices are also increasing due to high demand. Nathan Garcia, who had lived in the region, now travels 50 km every day to go from Sant Corneli de Cercs (Berguedà), where he lives, to Bolvir, where the company where he works is based. And another 50 to return home.
“Cerdanya, which has turned tourism into its economic engine, has become an uninhabitable place.” “If you have to allocate 800 or 900 euros to rent, the numbers don’t work out anywhere,” he adds and says that for years not all the ski instructor positions have been filled because it no longer pays for the workers.
The teacher Lluís Lupión has also left Cerdanya due to the increase in rent. After living in 30 or 40 m2 apartments for which they paid 700 euros a month, he and his wife have bought a house in Sallent (Bages) and have ended their work period in the Pyrenean region that began in 2018.
He worked in a school as a part-time music teacher and she in the service sector. “La Cerdanya only wants people with a high purchasing power to live there from Friday to Sunday,” says Lupión, who regrets that as a result of Covid there has not been a paradigm shift. “It is still a region of many cranes, many closed windows and very few people living,” he laments.
