Many closed houses are a town that dies and many villages that die are a country without a future. It is one of the most solid arguments of the campaign Rent Ho! which has launched in the Asturian Council of Piloña, but that extends throughout the interior of the Eastern Zone of the Principality, the El Prial Association and that is part of the free platform Return to the town that seeks to revitalize the rural environment.
Revitalize either through the settlement of people looking to leave the urban to settle in a town, or for those who already inhabit them and want to help through the rental, sale or assignment of homes, businesses or land, in addition to job offers.
And in Asturias, according to the last census elaborated in this regard by the National Statistics Institute (INE) in 2021, There are 100,000 empty homes, most of them are in the rural area. However, despite these figures, if we are about to look of the INE.
Thus, if we enter one of the most popular search engines to rent or buy housing and select Asturias we find 1,427 floors and houses for rent throughout the Principality. The offer is struck significantly when introducing filters to limit the search.
For example, restricting this houses for houses for rent, not sale, the offer is drastically reduced to 159, distributed as follows, 81 in the central area, 51 in the Asturian East and 22 in the western area. Figures that are reduced to insignificance if we add the “long duration” concept, because tourism is, although it does not seem, one of the activities that most punishes the vital project of establishing itself in a town.
In this context, Asturias was born in 2018 Back to town, a program developed nationwide by the Confederation of Rural Development Centers, with presence in the wings of the region (East and West) thanks to the Edes Foundation and the El Prial Association, which develop it in the councils of Navia, San Tirso de Abres, Vegadeo, Castropol, Taramundi, Los Oscos, Tapia de Casariego, El Franco, Coaña, Villayón, Valdés, Boal, Illano, Pesoz, Grandas de Salime, Piloña, Parres, Amieva, Ponga, Cangas de Onís, Onís, Cabrales, Peñamellera (High and Low) and Colunga.
The objective of this program is, since its inception, to accompany the people who want to settle in the villages throughout the process, and do so through providing realistic information that allows them to insert and adapt in the new medium. They also seek to weave support networks through people who work for and by rural areas; sensitize about the disappointment problem; or make visible labor, training, entrepreneurship resources, generational relief of businesses and housing available.
The people of the interior are the ones who suffer the most depopulation, because many people think of the rural as a landscape of consumption, and Asturias is a habitable place, not only visiting
Thanks to this program, and as Mario Rodríguez, one of his technicians, tells us, last 2024, thanks to this program, they managed to settle 20 family units in interior towns of the Asturian East. It is precisely inside Asturias where the depopulation process has been more pressing, because according to Rodríguez, many people think of the rural as a landscape of consumption, and Asturias is a habitable place, not only visiting.
After six years of care Putting your house for rent is even greater than in the cities, the prial and Edes, with support from the government of the Principality, take another step to overcome that rental culture as favor. Thus it is born Rent Ho!
Because open houses are needed, people in the villages and children in schools, this initiative, which was born in a modest way, directly appeals to the feelings of those who do not want to see their peoples die and put them in front of the mirror because “you too You are part of the solution ”, as this poster and audiovisual campaign is also, in which faces known as Rodrigo Cuevas, Xoxé Ambás, Arantza Margolles or Pau San Tirso have already been involved.
Starting from a broad and real knowledge of the area, the technicians of this campaign put at the service of those who are thinking of a change of life, at least from the housing point of view, a map of resources in which the opportunities are visible, But also an information service that allows a “realistic landing”, because the more information you have, the more chances of success there is, says Mario, who also ensures that looking for all this information on your own can take you between six months and one year, as well as to make some mistakes.
From the PRIAL they are clear that Asturias is a tremendously attractive territory for tourism, and that, that in its day it was a revulsive for the economy of the peoples, has now begun to be a problem because it has triggered speculation, promoting that the majority of houses likely to get to the rent, they are allocated to tourist Alqulets.
To this we must add, as Mario Rodríguez explains, family problems with inheritances, anger between family members, headaches or toxic speeches about the squatting, as arguments that damage rent.
Therefore, from Rent Ho! They want to know that Spain/Asturias emptied is a structural problem that has many layers, because “that closed house could be the solution to the waiting list at the Arriondas Hospital.” And it is that “an empty house is a square without people, and a territorio without professionals is grass of fire.”
The reception that the program is having is good, it is appreciated from the population that inhabits the peoples, because it energizes, and also than those who seek to settle. “There are critical visions of the situation,” says Mario, but people are aware of the deficiencies of the villages and the program is being well received.
The network that begins to weave through initiatives of this type, organizing meetings and coffees, so that people commonly put their situation, or workshops taught by different associations of the areas, in which to understand “the logic of the rural” , helping bridges between cities and towns, essential for life to return to villages, because “life brings life.”
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