Sunday’s protesters in favor of decent housing at affordable prices do not expect anything from the right, but they expect more, much more, from the Government of Pedro Sánchez. For example, the push for a colossal public housing stock
Housing in Spain: Fundamental right or unattainable luxury?
No, ladies and gentlemen of the right, the market does not fix everything. With the vociferous Ayuso at the helm, you pontificate that public intervention in the housing market would not be able to contain or reduce the exorbitant prices of rent or the purchase of an apartment by our children. They predict that, on the contrary, they would raise them. And I say to myself: has the policy of Laissez faire, laissez passer, the world goes by lui-même of Mrs. Ayuso lower or, at the very least, moderate those prices? The answer is obvious except for the undoubtedly numerous fans of the queen of vermouth: a resounding no.
The right boasts of governing the majority of the municipalities and autonomous communities in Spain, but I have not read anywhere that real estate prices have dropped in Madrid, Malaga or Valencia. Quite the opposite. And it is precisely the city councils and the autonomous communities that are in charge of directly and almost exclusively managing this matter, something that has always seemed risky to me. I do not see decentralization and even federalism incompatible with the central government reserving executive powers in the face of crises in health, education and housing.
Ayuso even boasts about not applying in Madrid the Housing Law approved by the Spanish Parliament last year. Wow, a law and order party encourages insubordination, contempt, and rebellion against the representatives of national sovereignty! I suppose it is because the saying “the law is the law and we are all obliged to comply with it” only applies to Catalans.
I participated on Sunday in the citizen demonstration that brought together tens of thousands of Madrid residents in defense of the constitutional right to decent housing at affordable prices. I am the father of two daughters who, despite having a permanent job and a decent salary, cannot rent a 30 square meter apartment in the capital of Spain, let alone buy it. So, at the height of Cibeles, I greeted warmly a young woman who was walking with her head covered with a kind of doghouse made of cardboard. “The only roof I can afford,” said the banner with which the girl explained herself. Well yes, I have heard similar phrases from my daughters in recent years.
Ladies and gentlemen of the right, the market is not remedying the housing crisis in Spain, nor will it do so. And, believe me, this is a very real and very serious problem, an anguish that affects the daily lives of millions of young people and that of their parents. The housing crisis is not one of those ideological, imaginary, absolutely ghostly hoaxes that you put on the table for public debate. Like ETA is more alive than ever -what a majaderíto– or the amnesty is going to break Spain.
This crisis is one of those that affects food and requires urgent and massive intervention by the Spanish State. To combat the epidemic of tourist apartments. To put limits on rents. To promote the immediate construction of hundreds of thousands of social housing. The urgency and intensity of such intervention must correspond to that of a state of national emergency. Because if the covid threatened death to our older or vulnerable compatriots, the impossibility of getting their own roof will ruin the lives of our young people and embitter the last stretch of their parents’ lives. Who can leave the old people’s house, who can share their intimate life with their partner, who can have children if a hideout costs more than 1,000 euros?
That is where the Government of Pedro Sánchez is taking a risk. It is not ruled out that the indignation of Sunday’s demonstration ends up giving way to a new 15M of rent strikes, sit-ins in squares and continuous marches, a protest that would undermine the shaky government majority. I spoke with quite a few of my fellow marchers and they did not expect anything from the right. They knew that their nature is to be with the multi-owners, with the vulture funds, with the Venezuelan millionaires. That’s why they are the right, damn it!
But from a Government that claims to share the idea that housing is not only a business for some, but also a right for all, they expect more, much more. Not mere rental assistance bonuses that landlords end up pocketing while they continue to raise rates. They hope, for example, to boost a colossal public park of decent housing at fair prices. One of the messages on Sunday said it: “You are the Government, stop tweeting.”
#roof
