If I remember correctly from me ´ol junior high school days, I do seem to recall learning in HomeEc class that "adequate housing" forms part of Maswell´s (pyramid, was it?) of basic needs. Why is it then, that adequate housing - a basic human need - is so often not easily found? It´s easy to look at the stats of the number of people who are quite literally homeless throughout the world ... what´s perhaps not so obviously seen it the percentage of people who are indeed fortunate enough to have a roof over their heads ... but scrape by just to pay rent every month. Spain an excellent example: in the generation of 1000 euristas (the average take home salary is now around just 1000 euros), no one is able to put enough savings aside to actually purchase an exorbitantly priced mini-apartment and is instead forced to rent ... often spending up to 75% of their paycheck on rent alone. From Barcelona and Madrid to Paris, London and Geneva, there continue to be mounting complaints and often turned violent protests from ´squatters´ whose vacant buildings they are occupying to save a few pennies (often vibrant creating community centers on site as well) are being repossessed to build luxury apartments - that are then purchased by foreigners as second vacation homes. I certainly have nothing against vacation homes nor luxury apartments, but where´s the affordable housing going?
Geneva is particularly notorious for it´s hellish housing situation. While I tried to remain positive that I would find something, literally everyone I met commented that it took them between four and six MONTHS to find something. I will say right out that I have not been picky in my searching - if it had four walls, a ceiling, no mice and was not on the ground floor, I turned in an application. Much to Marcel´s dismay, I even turned in an application on a great place ... in the red light district. After nearly three weeks of literally looking 50hours/week, seeing over 30 appartments and feeling like I was applying for a job everytime I had to fill out an application under the watchful eye of the real estate peeps, I was getting well into the desperate stage and was even about to hire a real estate broker. The competition is intense and when you are trying to stand out from the other -literally - 50 people applying for the same place, you´ll do about anything to stand out ... yes, I resorted to putting stars in the corners of our application forms, highlighting anything I could to give it a little color and showing up at the real estate places on a daily basis just to "see how they were doing" (ie make them tired of seeing me until they finally gave in and gave me something, anything. In fact, just when I was most frustrated with the whole thing, the newspapers started publishing front page articles on the dire housing situation "Barely 400 units available to rent: the misery continues" was the last one I saw. Way to boost the morale.
To be honest, I think the kicker was when I turned in the application for the appartment on the main street of the red light district. The real estate agent (now my close friend, I visited him daily) just kind of looked at me and said, "You know this is a very animated area. Of the appartments you´ve applied for with us, which do you prefer?" (I had maxed out my applications at most of the real estate agencies). Of course I said one of the other ones ... and the next day I finally had a call saying the one that I loved (and not in the red light district) was ours if we wanted it. I kid you not, I was in tears of relief by the time I got off the phone (telling her we´d take it of course), but later got to thinking how absolutely absurd it is that the lack of supply and high demands turns us all into such pawns of the real estate agencies - you´re practically made to feel as though they´re doing YOU a favor ... and you are faced to pay nothing but a small fortune for a shoebox of a place.
How fortunate I am to have the unwavering support of my family and Marcel (whose Swiss nationality undoubtedly played a key role in helping get a place), but what happens to all of those people who don´t enjoy such blessings? Housing is of course significantly cheaper and easier to come by just 15 minutes across the border in France, but for many like myself our work and residency visas are only valid for Switzerland. Should it truly be this difficult just to fulfill one of our most basic needs??
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