No other shock plan would be more effective than the one proposed here: the start of the construction of 50,000 social rental homes in the first year; 200,000 before 2026. The only thing missing is political will and getting to the task
The difficulties of a considerable part of the population in accessing housing to own or rent at affordable prices has reached the dimensions of a true social emergency in Spain.
Between 2013 and 2024, rents have grown by 85% and housing prices by 72%. The increase in salaries in the same period has been 23%. The logical consequence is the excessive effort that broad social strata of our country, with medium and low incomes, are forced to make to access decent housing, suffering the extraction of a considerable part of their income.
To address this serious situation, measures are being proposed, all probably necessary, although short-range, sometimes simplistic and contradictory, in which various phenomena are intermingled, from the action of real estate investment funds to the so-called touristification and, often based on unverified sources that increase confusion about the nature of the housing problem and what its most effective solutions could be.
However, there seems to be a general consensus on the need for a National Plan capable of articulating structural policies that allow public powers to ensure citizens’ right to housing.
In this direction, Economistas Frente a la Crisis made public last July a proposal that would allow for the coordination of cooperation between the Public Administrations involved – Central, Autonomous and Local – with different and complementary powers, for the creation of a public park of social housing for rent of comparable size to those that already exist in the countries where accommodation problems have been best resolved.
What would be the minimum essential components that a National Housing Plan should contain that successfully addresses the social emergency created by difficulties in accessing housing?
1. The creation of a Financial Fund by the General Administration of the State), regulated by a norm with the rank of law that would establish, in a concrete and exhaustive manner, the destination and the conditions of use of its resources to finance the construction of the park. public housing for rent.
2. The Fund would be fueled primarily by successive issues of ICO bonds guaranteed by the State. The resources for the construction of housing would, therefore, be available in a short period of time in order to begin construction projects of some 200,000 social rental housing units before the end of 2026, and a larger number in the future. next legislature, which would need, as an exceptional measure, the simplification of administrative procedures in order to reduce the deadlines for their approval and construction as much as possible.
3. The legal conditions for the use of the Fund’s resources would be formalized and applied through agreements that the Autonomous Communities and City Councils would sign with a State Fund Management Company that would channel the resources for the construction of the housing stock. The agreements would determine the conditions and costs of construction of the homes, their environmental quality, the typology of housing according to the diversity of the applicants, the prices of social rents, the provision of public land for their construction, the urban location of the housing (avoiding the creation of “ghettos” in cities), etc. The involvement of the Administrations in the National Plan will allow the construction of the park to be rapidly developed.
4. A key element of this proposal is the character of permanent and non-alienable public good of the properties, as well as the priority nature in the General State Budgets of the construction of social rental housing. The subsequent professional management of the park and the rentals could be assumed by the Territorial Administrations when they wish or through the State Fund Management Company.
Thus, in the face of the constant increase in noise and frustration that now presides over the debate on housing, the proposal of Economists Facing the Crisis seeks just the opposite: to offer a concrete and effective mechanism, financial and institutional cooperation, that would allow from the muses (innumerable and diverse occurrences to increase the supply of rental housing) to the theater (a feasible and agile response mechanism shared by all Public Administrations for the construction of a public park of social rental housing), explaining the form in which could materialize the constitutional right to housing for all those people to whom it is currently prohibited.
The extremes on which this proposal is based ensure:
a) The launch of a National Housing Plan (which appeals to the entire Nation would be, in itself, a political message of enormous power) to create a significant park of social rental housing, as the only shock measure with the capacity to urgently begin the construction of the first 200,000 homes in two years, thus initiating a forceful and general response to the social accommodation emergency created by the high rental and home purchase prices in large areas of the country.
b) The Territorial Administrations, which are constitutionally competent in the matter, would have powerful incentives for the full exercise of their powers: the financing by the General Administration of the State of the construction of a public park of social rental housing on public land contributed to the National Plan. The agreements would be configured as the system that would replace jurisdictional conflicts with cooperation mechanisms between all levels of the Administration with the common objective of solving the problem of the increase in the cost of rental accommodation.
c) The implementation of the social rental housing stock would also act, from the first moment, as the most important mechanism for moderating prices (rental and sales), especially in stressed areas, when an offer emerges. public housing adjusted to the characteristics and possibilities of the demand for medium and low incomes.
d) The accommodation needs of the lowest-income population would, in this way, be increasingly satisfied in Spain, progressively creating a permanent social rental housing stock, which would also allow raising the real income levels of millions of families, ending the regressive mechanism of income transfer through housing that has exacerbated the inequalities of our country.
In short, the General Administration of the State would fulfill its task of providing the necessary financial resources and the Autonomous Communities and City Councils would do theirs by providing public land and close management capacity for the urgent start of hundreds of thousands of homes with social rentals. No other shock plan would be more effective than the one proposed here: the start of the construction of 50,000 social rental homes in the first year; 200,000 before 2026. The only thing missing is political will and getting to the task.
(This article is signed by: Julio Rodríguez López, former president of the Banco Hipotecario de España and the Caja de Ahorros de Granada, member of the Board of Directors of Economistas Frente a la Crisis (EFC); Jorge Fabra Utray, president of EFC, and Cecilia Castaño and Antonio González González, vice presidents of EFC)
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