At 1,900 euros a month, the rent was not cheap. But Alicia Bocuñano still felt fortunate to find an apartment on Ibiza at that price. As a taxi driver pulling 16-hour days, Bocuñano, a single mother who grew up on this Spanish island, figured that a surplus from the busy summer months might be enough to make the rent.
But her would-be landlord wanted six months of rent plus a security deposit upfront — close to 14,000 euros (about $15,300) in one shot. Though not quite legal in Spain’s tightly regulated rental sector, such demands are common on Ibiza, where wealthy tourists fill beachfront hotels and glittering dance clubs while the people who work in those places — not to mention the island’s teachers, firefighters and other essential workers — can’t find a place to live. In lieu of a new apartment, Bocuñano, 38, spent a frightening two weeks sleeping in her car, then three months in a tent with her 10-year-old son, Raúl, by her side, before buying a used caravan in June.
For a couple of months, she stationed the Caravelair-brand trailer in Can Rova, an ad hoc village of tents, shacks and campers on the outskirts of Ibiza Town, the island’s capital, just behind a dealership selling expensive powerboats. “When we first came here it was cold,” she said. “Like, very cold.
” Tent cities began popping up here in 2023, but they have mushroomed in size and number this year. Can Rova, the largest of three major camps in and around the capital, was home t.