Housing Shortage at the Airport: Why Palma's Outskirts Are Becoming Emergency Camps

Housing Shortage at the Airport: Why Palma's Outskirts Are Becoming Emergency Camps

Key question: Can Palma offer short-term protection and long-term housing to people living outdoors or in illegal shacks?

In the dusty peripheral zones around Son Sant Joan, where the wind carries the engine noise of departing planes over old corrugated roofs, more and more people have settled in recent months. On fallow lots, in vacant industrial halls and along the airport fences, makeshift dwellings have appeared. Toys lie next to dust-covered shopping trolleys, laundry flutters on metal racks — the scene is not only sad, it is a wake-up call.

The situation is not an isolated phenomenon. Palma has had too little affordable housing for years, as documented in Sky-high prices, tents, empty promises: Why Mallorca's housing crisis is no longer a marginal issue, and the outskirts feel the consequences particularly strongly: areas beyond the Llucmajor motorway, the spaces around Mercapalma and old football fields are deteriorating because people have no other choice, a trend also visible in When Caravans Become the Last Address: How the Housing Crisis Is Changing Mallorca. Owners secure buildings with walls and locks, security companies install cameras — architectural isolation instead of solutions for those living inside.

Anyone standing on the pedestrian bridge between Can Pastilla and the airport hears more than just aircraft noise: delivery vans, distant conversations, the clatter of chained tires on gravel. A passerby, a worker from Mercapalma, says he sees families coming and going, sometimes parents with small children sharing a meal among cardboard boxes and a camping stove. These observations match the traces: children's clothing, a teddy bear, a small plastic slide in front of an abandoned hall.

Critical analysis: The responses that currently dominate on site are reactive. Owners secure property, security firms are supposed to deter, enforcement services perform checks. That protects private property — but solves not a single social problem. When people seek refuge on airport grounds, it is because the city, island and municipal support systems do not reach them: there is a lack of short-term emergency shelters, adequate counseling and mediation structures, and a sufficient supply of social housing, a situation detailed in When Work Isn't Enough: Palma and the Growing Number of Homeless People.

One important element is missing from the public debate: the differentiation between people living temporarily in emergency conditions and those who are without shelter in the longer term. Instead of blanket condemnations or purely criminalization strategies, there needs to be a public discussion about how much affordable housing is needed, how temporary shelters must be organized, and what responsibility airport-adjacent landowners, logistics companies and large markets can assume.

Concrete everyday scene: On a gray morning at the edge of an abandoned skatepark project, two men roll up blankets. A child giggles as a bus passes on the motorway. A dog sniffs an old refrigerator. The smell of petrol mixes with the scent of fried food from a camping stove. This normality at the edge of infrastructure shows: this is not just about property; it is about people who need spaces to live.

Concrete solutions, without claiming to be exhaustive: First priority must be the protection of families with children — mobile teams made up of social workers, health services and interpreters should regularly visit the affected areas and provide first aid, warm clothing and vaccination and health advice. Municipalities must quickly convert vacant city-owned buildings into temporary emergency shelters and simultaneously launch binding placement programs for social housing.

Furthermore, the island administration should consider binding cooperation agreements with operators of large plots near the airport: areas that are currently fallow could be used temporarily for structured emergency accommodations. A mandatory clearing procedure before evictions would be sensible: evictions may only take place with guaranteed rehousing and with leaflets about available assistance — otherwise the problem is only shifted.

Long term, building affordable housing is indispensable. That means: releasing building land, financing social housing programs and speeding up the use of vacant existing properties, an issue also illustrated in When Living Rooms Become Bedrooms: How Mallorca Suffers from a Housing Shortage. Public-private partnerships can help, but only with clear conditions that reserve occupancy for socially disadvantaged groups.

What is often missing in the debate is the voice of those affected themselves. Without their perspective, measures remain merely technical. Counseling services and participation formats should therefore be integrated into all planning: only those who are heard remain reachable in measures.

Conclusion: The shanty settlements and squats around Palma's airport are not just a matter of order and property. They are the visible end of a chain: too little affordable housing, too few immediately available assistance options, too little political coordination. Palma can solve this if authorities, owners and civil society finally deliver a concrete strategy — quickly to protect the vulnerable, and in parallel to provide permanent housing. Those who now only lock up or shut out are simply shifting suffering to the next fallow lot — and in the end it is the same bridge, the same teddy bears, the same children who freeze.