Thousands of people, most of them young, supported this Saturday the demonstration called by the Network of Housing Unions of Euskal Herria to demand “the universal right to housing” and denounce that the measures promoted by the Basque Government and Pedro’s executive Sánchez to facilitate access to rentals “are not going to solve the problem”, since these only “increase the housing business.” Under the motto ‘Etxebizitza eskubidea bermatu, negozioari ez’ (Let’s guarantee the right to housing, not to business), thousands of people left at 1:00 p.m. from the Plaza Elíptica in Bilbao in a march that up to 220 people joined. social, political and union agents such as ELA, Ezker Anitza-IU or Sumar Mugimendua.
Among slogans such as ‘renters and businessmen take my salary’ or ‘there is no right to not have a roof’, the route has advanced along Gran Vía and other streets in the center of the capital of Biscay to culminate in Plaza Arriaga. Throughout it, several stops have been made to protest against, for example, the Housing Law (in front of the Treasury delegation) or “tourism and genocide.” Previously, the spokespersons for the organizing groups, Ane Salvador and Karla Paisano, have appeared before the media to declare that the purpose of this march is to urge the construction “of a broad movement whose objective is to guarantee the universal right to housing.”
In this sense, they have also pointed out “the need for a free housing model” in the same frameworks as health or education. “We are talking about a basic good, a first necessity good and for us we have to move towards that model,” they stated.
On the other hand, they have defined the state Housing Law as “an electoral farce.” In his opinion, the norm approved in the previous legislature by the coalition government of the PSOE and Unidas Podemos “is leaking everywhere” and, above all, has been accompanied “by a great electoral campaign that promises certain changes that later were not implemented.” “they produce such as, for example, the prohibition of evictions,” they have criticized.
In this sense, they have also denounced that the launches “continue to be carried out daily”, despite the fact that there is a decree law (approved in June of this year) that aims to extend until 2028, the suspension of evictions from the habitual residence. “What happens if you proclaim that you have banned evictions and then they are carried out daily? That, in some way, you are hiding the problem and, on the other hand, generating a social demobilization that is very worrying,” they stressed.
The spokespersons have also said that the political forces with representation in the parliamentary arc, “despite the various proclamations that they can launch in electoral cycles”, when they come to power adopt management positions “that more or less apply the same program.” They have specified that this agenda consists of “financing rentierism and creating tax exemptions for owners and, once again, starting a construction cycle that will take us back to brick fever.”
Along these lines, they have regretted that “nothing has been learned” from the 2008 crisis and insisted on the need to focus on the need to structure “a broad movement” capable of catalyzing “structural changes”, because, according to stated, housing is understood as a business. “We believe that an erroneous framework of understanding is being proclaimed that makes us understand that the only solution to the housing problem comes from financing the business focused on it,” they noted. They have proposed as an alternative a model that puts housing “at the service of collective needs”
Housing for tourist use
Both spokespersons have pointed out that housing for tourist use has become “one of the refuge sectors for speculative interests.” Thus, they have warned that, in this case, both large and small owners have found in tourist homes a “very profitable” way to guarantee certain profits.
“This is one of the factors that generates a rise in prices and that leads to talk of a housing shortage when in Hego Euskal Herria there are more than 70,000 empty homes and 9,000 for tourist use,” they pointed out. Precisely for these reasons, they have called to “stop talking about the lack of supply to focus on “the use that is being given to these resources that already exist in this society.”
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