The Tres Peces social center, in Lavapiés, is the meeting point of the Tenants’ Union in Madrid. A place shared with other groups and full of banners and posters that are, clearly, the reflection of a combative Spain. There we met with Andrés Pradillo, spokesperson for the union, to talk about something that concerns us all: housing. Last October 13, “we made history” mentioned Valeria Racu, after the demonstration. But the fight continues, this is just the beginning. What are the next steps? We analyze it.
How and when did the Tenants’ Union emerge and what is your daily life like here?
It was born in 2017 in Madrid and Catalonia simultaneously because there had been an evolution of the real estate market that had now started to use the housing as a financial asset. We saw what the 2008 crisis was, the mortgage crisis and that is where PAHs arise. It is the moment in which the vulture funds wildly in the real estate market. And analyzing the situation we felt that we needed our own tool, we needed a union. Because renting is a conflict in itself between those who own a home and those who do not.
On October 13, around 150,000 people came out to demonstrate in Madrid for the right to housing, but you yourselves said that this was only the beginning. What should we do now and what does the rent strike consist of?
We were very clear that we had to go out on the streets, people asked for it, but also that we had to go further. In the end, the demonstration is a specific milestone and we thought that it was necessary hit the real estate employers and the rentiers, That’s why we decided that we had to organize a rent strike and we are in it. We are holding assemblies, we are organizing strike committees. And above all, stating that the rent strike it’s real because there are about 900 tenants affected by the Nestar vulture fund, who have stopped paying part of their rent. We believe that this has to be extended, because it cannot be that we continue allocating half of our salary to pay rentthat rentiers continue to get rich at our expense and especially because rents must be lowered by 50%. And since the governments are not going to do it or at the moment it seems that they do not want to do it, we will have to do it ourselves, organizing ourselves and reducing rents.
Last Tuesday the Government called you to a meeting in Moncloa together with the real estate employers and the Union revoked the request. Why did you do it?
For us, the invitation was a way, on the one hand, to wash our face of the political management they are doing with the housing issue and also a way to legitimize ourselves. The 150,000 people who took to the streets also came out to say that the Government was being complicit and responsible of the attack he was making rentism. We were not going to sit at a table with the real estate employers, who are the cause of the housing problem. That is to say, trying to solve or develop housing policies with those who are mainly responsible for rents now being 50% higher and for us being kicked out of our homes is stupid. That’s why We didn’t want a photo with the real estate employers. It’s like trying to solve the problem caused by tobacco with Malboro, with Chester or with the different companies that are causing people’s health to worsen. With housing it is exactly the same. With the real estate employers we are not going to sit down and develop public housing policies.
What political measures do you think should be taken to tackle this housing problem?
One has to lower rents by 50% by law. On the other hand, we must recover all empty and tourist homes that right now are prey to speculation, that are not used to live. We are talking about 180,000 empty homes in the Community of Madrid and 20,000 tourist apartments. That home has to be used to live. One has to expropriate all the homes of the vulture funds that at some point were public. And this is very important. The homes owned by the vulture funds in Madrid were public and the Community of Madrid gave them away years ago. The dismantling of all eviction companies. They are companies that are stalking us, attacking us, harassing us. There are dozens of people who suffer harassment from these companies because it is no longer just the police or a judge who throws us out, but thugs hired by the rentiers throw us out. You also have to stop and prohibit all evictions. Right now, evictions continue to be carried out and in this way, with these minimum measures, we can move towards the objective, which is that housing is not a market good with which to do business.
The Government spoke last week about the young rental bonus, but this measure is clearly insufficient. What is being done wrong by the Ministry?
He Ministry of Housingon the one hand, is acting between the incompetence and inaction, because the rental bonus is a decision that only serves to give money to rentiers. Instead of lowering rents, what we do is subsidize rentiers. That doesn’t make any sense and also falls into inaction because they are doing absolutely nothing. The absolute failure of the housing law with the current minister in office has been demonstrated. They have wanted to regulate seasonal and room rentals and they are continually dragging their feet on that issue. And in the face of that, what we say is that the Housing Minister has to resign and the 150,000 people who took to the streets shouted it very loudly. And the worst of all is that The minister is a rentier. Not only in the Congress of Deputies, 60% of the deputies are rentiers, But the Minister of Housing, who is supposed to look after the interests of those of us who live in rent, is a rentier. That too is absolutely intolerable and we demand his resignation for his incompetence.
Do you think there is a disconnection between the political class and the reality of the real estate market?
I believe that what I just mentioned about Congress exemplifies this very well. We are increasingly impoverishedwe have less and less possibility of accessing a property and more of us are condemned to live renting our entire lives. Politicians accumulate homes just like a large part of the rentiers in this country. So there is a clear disconnection and that also later reverts to the fact that, obviously, who you are going to defend in the last instance is yours, the rentiers and those who dedicate themselves to speculate with housing.
Is there any model or country that is doing it well?
There are countries that are taking measures that are much more advanced than ours. In Canada The purchase of housing for speculation was prohibited. In other countries they have regulated rents, such as in Holland. Then we have the example of Vienna. That is to say, there are concrete examples where progress has been made in housing, but they are insufficient because in reality there are still problems in these countries.
In the Community of Madrid more than 90% of the total tourist apartments are illegal. How is real estate speculation and tourism affecting the rise in rental prices?
The tourist apartments and in general the tourism from our cities has been a way of expelling the neighbors of the entire life of the neighborhoods. Tourism has made them have to go to the peripheryat the same time that people from the periphery have had to go even further to the periphery. This has completely transformed our cities and urban centers into a tourist amusement park, in a business for a few. Those who get rich from all this are a few who do business, be it with housing, be it with hotels, be it with certain shops or restaurants. And the consequence is that people have to leave because they cannot live in the center of the cities. And we see this very well with tourist apartments, which are a perfect example. Thousands of neighbors have to leave because their apartment is no longer an apartment that is used for living, but is used for do business with tourists.
Who are the big speculators and vulture funds that operate in this country?
A great example is CaixaBank. There are dozens of examples of large funds that have done their business through housing and that monopolize a large public park, a large housing park that in many cases was public.
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