The council plenary session in Palma on Thursday heard from people affected by the city's housing problems.
One of these people was Laura. She is a single mother with a 13-year-old daughter. On the face of it, Laura is not in a vulnerable situation. She earns 2,000 euros a month. From this she has to pay the rent, pay for a car and meet certain financial obligations.
Things are manageable. The rent for her apartment in Palma's La Vileta is 800 euros a month. But her situation is about to change. From January she will have to pay 1,500 euros a month. The owners have suddenly increased the rent by 87%. "I'm tearing my hair out. I have tried to negotiate with them, to offer to pay up to 1,000 euros, 50 per cent of my income. But they say that it's not worth it for them."
The owners are both teachers at a well-known private school. They own a family house and rent out two other flats. They apparently haven't said that they have a need for the sudden increase in rent.
The Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), which also offers support to people affected by rents, had arranged for Laura and others to explain their situations. Hers isn't an isolated case.
"This isn't only happening to me. There are separated couples who have to continue living together or who move in with their parents." Laura hasn't yet found alternative accommodation, having lived in the apartment for five years. She is looking at moving away from Palma, perhaps to Inca. But when the agencies see that she is a single mother with a daughter, they don't want to know.
Among others who spoke at the council meeting were working people who have to live in motorhomes. They now face being fined because of new town hall ordinance.
Angela Pons, spokesperson for PAH, said situations such as Laura's are being repeated because the possibility of declaring Palma (and elsewhere in Mallorca) a stressed area has been rejected. This can be done under Spanish law and is designed to cap rents. It is up to regional governments to approve this or not, and the Balearic Government has opted not to.
The argument is made that caps don't work because all they do is remove rented accommodation from the market. But without controls is there just simply greed? Laura didn't fit the profile of a vulnerable person. At 1,500 euros a month she does.
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There is no justification for a rent rise of this degree. Greed is an ugly thing to see