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Faced with an unrelenting economic crisis, Spaniards have been getting creative with their housing arrangements. In the southern Spanish state of Andalusia, a network of urban squatters operating under the umbrella name of Corrala Utopia has started occupying some of the more than 130,000 homes and spaces made vacant by the country’s housing crisis.

Although Spain’s squatting tradition goes back decades, the economic crisis has accelerated what was once a largely political movement. More than ever, as a traditional squatters’ slogan says, there are “many people without houses and many houses without people.”

And there are few signs of improvement on the horizon.

Since January 1, 2008, Spanish judges have ordered more than 350,000 evictions. Spanish banks have foreclosed on tens of thousands of homes across the country, sending scores of families into the streets looking for shelter. In 2012 alone, more than 50,000 families were made homeless after failing to pay their mortgages. The rate has been increasing lately. The eviction figures for the second quarter of 2012 (19,000) were nearly four times as high as they had been in the first part of 2008 (5,614).

The housing panic has led to high drama in Spain recently. Since October, a rash of suspected eviction-related suicides has swept the country as people, many of them elderly, chose to end their lives, reportedly because they couldn’t escape debt.

A longstanding Spanish law stipulates that banks can pursue people for funds owed even after they relinquish their homes, leaving many saddled with debt to death and to the next generation. The latest eviction-related suicide came two weeks ago on the island of Mallorca when a couple, aged 68 and 69, killed themselves in their house.

Some Spaniards are fighting back. An anti-eviction campaign called PAH, or Mortgage Victims’ Platform, has been gaining momentum. In November the group sponsored a petition signed by more than 1.4 million people to pass a bill that would end evictions. The new PAH-sponsored bill would also reverse the old law.

Over the last several weeks, four more corralas have sprouted up in other southern Spanish cities hit hard by the mortgage crisis and high unemployment figures. Locksmiths and firefighters across the country have joined the fray, refusing in many cases to help court bailiffs open doors and break into houses.

It’s not just private homes that are being affected by Spain’s tumbling economy. Also affected is the country’s much-celebrated network of castles, monasteries and churches, called the Paradores de Turismo, that are at risk of being shuttered, perhaps permanently. As the Times’ Suzanne Daley recently reported, the network posted a €28-million loss, and threatened to close 7 of the country’s 93 paradores permanently. The decision was since reversed, but the threat still looms.

To cope with its economic woes, Spain has taken drastic measures. This week, the Spanish government announced that any British residents of the country, of which there are an estimated 800,000 or so, would be required to declare any and all assets worth more than €50,000 being held outside the country or face stiff penalties starting at €10,000 and up.

Today, Spain’s jobless figures rose to record heights. With more than five million unemployed people, how many will be able to afford a place to live? And if they cannot, where will they go?