“We have made housing policy a central axis of this legislature,” the Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, concluded this Wednesday in Congress, in an appearance in which she put on the table several measures aimed at solving the which has become a “social emergency”. Among them, protecting public housing stock “in perpetuity” so that they cannot be sold at a free price, increasing the resources dedicated to this matter to expand the supply, also thanks to European funds, giving tax credits to landlords who put up dispose of their properties at a cheaper price, develop housing law and deepen price regulation. “The open bar is useless,” he said. “Yes to the regulation and development of the housing law,” he added, before remembering that the process has already begun to regulate tourist accommodation, based on community law. He has also asked for cooperation from the regional governments, with broad competence in housing, and to strengthen public-private collaboration.
Rodríguez’s appearance occurs at the request of several parliamentary groups and after an increase in street protests by young people who demand greater intervention from the Government to lower rental prices. Housing has become a state issue and a political battleground. The current crisis crystallizes into an access problem, more serious than that suffered by young people during the bubble prior to the financial crash of 2008.
According to the Bank of Spain, the mismatch between demand and supply is abysmal: about 600,000 houses are missing, a situation that strains the market. It is also much more difficult to access financing, due to the entities’ requirements being more restrictive and in a context of still high rates that make mortgage loans more expensive. Renting, the solution most used by young people who do not have enough savings to own property, is not seen as a panacea either. On the contrary, rental prices have risen even more than purchase prices, well above salaries, especially in large cities and areas that receive more travelers, where the tourist apartments that have proliferated in recent years put more pressure on prices.
The Government insists on the need to build a public housing stock that is offered at affordable prices, a plan that requires perseverance and investment muscle. The Government wants to take advantage of European funds to accelerate it. In this sense, it also has to deal with a ruling from the Constitutional Court which has overturned some precepts of the Housing Law, such as the total prohibition of disqualifying public apartment parks, although it has supported that they cannot be sold to private investors or vulture funds. Regulation is another pending commitment, from prices to the use of tourist apartments, with the handicap that competence in the matter falls to the autonomous communities, which can decide or not to apply the rules approved by the central Executive.
“There are no magic wands,” Rodríguez insisted. “Many of the measures already in place are not going to have immediate effects, others we are putting in place in the short and medium term. All of them will lay the foundations to provide structural responses to the problem,” he added, and gave Catalonia as an example for being the first territory to apply the housing law with a regulation of rental prices.
Before the appearance, Rodríguez answered a parliamentary question from the deputy and spokesperson for ERC in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, about the solutions that the Government has planned to respond to the housing emergency. “We are not going to stop until we find a solution to the housing problem,” the minister replied, asking for the support of the independence party to develop the housing law. “We have to get out of this together,” he added.
Rufián, in his second question, has urged that the Government put measures on the table beyond “motivational phrases”, defending that Spain does not need more properties, but rather solutions to empty housing, tourist apartments and property speculation. the big funds, which he proposed to expropriate. “The issue must be addressed rigorously,” replied Rodríguez, who has insisted on the necessary development of the housing law and on increasing supply — “the 3.4 million empty homes are not in places where there is demand,” has argued—with the construction of a public park “in the European style” and that it will be “forever.” That is, without the possibility of being disqualified after a few years.
Marches in the street and political tension
Rodríguez has appeared in Congress to give an account of his administration, harassed by the parties – both those that support the Government and the opposition – and by a wave of protests in the street, which demand greater intervention from him to lower the price of goods. rentals. Esquerra, Bildu and BNG, regular partners of the Executive, requested the appearance due to the “inaction” of their department and the “lack of measures” to access decent housing, and has the support of PP and Sumar, among other groups. Sumar’s parliamentary spokesperson, Íñigo Errejón, has warned the PSOE that the legislature may depend on the “crossroads” of housing policy. On Tuesday, his party agreed with the PP to exchange support. The popular ones managed to process a bill so that the Government needs authorization from Congress to send weapons to a country involved in a war conflict; Sumar has managed to get a law taken into account that addresses abusive clauses in mortgages. Podemos has also raised the pressure and has asked its bases if it should condition its parliamentary support for the Budgets on the imposition of measures to lower or cap rental prices, among others.
The appearance comes shortly after 22,000 people demonstrated in Madrid, some 15,000 in Valencia and 10,000 in the Canary Islands, for the right to housing and against touristification, and with new protests called in several cities. After the march in the capital, on Sunday, October 13, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, presented a new call for the Young Rental Bonus, endowed with 200 million euros, to provide aid of 250 euros to those under 35 years of age. Far from satisfying its partners, the measure has provoked a wave of criticism from Sumar, Podemos or ERC, who consider that it will only serve to increase the price of apartments if it is not accompanied by price regulation, and from Junts, which points out that the measure is so restrictive that only 0.1% of young people in Catalonia could enjoy it.
