The story of theSon Banya shanty town can be traced back to a Palma town hall initiative of 1969. With the assistance of the church, a place was to be found for gypsy families who were living in inhumane conditions in certain parts of the city - El Molinar was one of these.
Son Banya became home to some 600 people. There were 124 dwellings. The idea was that they would be temporary. The gypsies would be integrated into society. Social housing would be created for them. The plan was for the shanties to be eliminated by 1980 as there would no longer be any need for them. The plan was a failure.
Despite recent efforts at elimination, Son Banya remains. A permanent settlement for people at the margins of society, one thing that can be said for it is that it at least does provide some housing security, and not everyone in Son Banya is active in the drugs trade.
Such security doesn't exist elsewhere. If Son Banya has a semblance of ordered urbanisation, other shanty settlements are ad hoc. Nothing like Son Banya or indeed the El Hoyo shanty town, there is one - under the motorway bridge that passes over the Sa Riera Park - that has existed for around ten years.
A 'shanty' in the Paseo Marítimo roadworks has been dismantled. Photo: Teresa Ayuga.
The town hall occasionally takes action in removing the shanties that have proliferated in recent years - a ten per cent increase over the past four years, or so it is reckoned. A single shanty, sited in the roadworks on the Paseo Marítimo, has been dismantled. The Romanian occupant declined the offer of a place in a hostel. The Balearic Ports Authority says that he plans to take a ferry and leave the island.
But dismantling doesn't solve the underlying problems. It is estimated that there are around 1,100 homeless people in the city, the great majority of them not being native Mallorcans. From mainland Spain or from other countries, they came to Mallorca in search of opportunity. They ended up on the streets.
There are various reasons to explain their situation, one being an impossibility of accessing housing. In the Arxiduc-Son Oliva district, there is what might be said to be a stark manifestation of this - two vacant lots, one with shanties, the other with a promotion for homes costing more than half a million euros.
More than fifty years ago, they spoke about social housing for the gypsies of Son Banya. They are still speaking, the need having become that much greater and certainly not confined to one profile of society.
There’s Mallorca’s problem in a nutshell.
Ineffective, incompetent and very definitely corrupted government!
Not the tourists, or gypsies, or poorly paid workers!
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There’s Mallorca’s problem in a nutshell. Ineffective, incompetent and very definitely corrupted government! Not the tourists, or gypsies, or poorly paid workers!
Talk is all they do. There is no excuse for the government/council not to build social housing. Get on with it now!