In the Sevillian town of Marinaleda, residents can have a house for about 20 euros a month, thanks to the City Council’s affordable housing program, whose mayor, Sergio Gómez, does not understand why other towns and cities do not apply measures like these. Of course, in this town of about 2,600 inhabitants 110 kilometers from the capital and almost next to the province of Malaga, very specific progress patterns are followed, which include, for example, a City Council in which no politician earns anything. , “not even for attendance at the plenary sessions”, so that “whoever gets into politics here knows that they are not going to earn a single euro.”
The mayor, from IU- Podemos, is a History teacher at the local high school, located very close to the Town Hall, and has not stopped his teaching activity at any time. His predecessor, the historic Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, never signed a payroll for his municipal work, even though he was mayor from 1979 to 2023. The housing issue is one more part of the way of understanding the service to the residents who have in this town, where you can go to the municipal swimming pool all summer for six euros a month or, for 12, have your children in the municipal daycare.
In the town there are no supermarket chains or important national companies that can compete with traditional commerce. If a large construction company wanted to build a development of houses in the town, the use of the land would simply not be approved in Plenary and they would have to turn around. In the middle of the nationwide maelstrom over the housing crisis, Sergio Gómez tells EFE in his office that they have taken very seriously “a right that is included in article 47 of the Constitution and article 25 of the Statute of Autonomy, that guarantee access to housing”, and, using the funds from the old PER, they have decided to “build houses instead of building streets”, and offer them to neighbors for a maximum price of 20 euros per month.
Thus, he shows EFE the promotion that is currently under construction, of 10 townhouses on one side and 14 on the other, separated by private land that the City Council has won in court so as not to slow down the growth of the town. They are two-story townhouses. In Marinaleda it is prohibited to construct buildings as such. In addition, the 20 euros per month give the option of renting the home without a time limit, but the house always belongs to the City Council. “This prevents speculation with housing, and ensures that all the people who need it have a home.”
The mayor himself lives in a house built by a regime similar to those of the housing cooperatives, in the Hugo Chávez neighborhood, with the future residents contributing their labor in the construction and counting the hours towards the final price of the house. When the construction is finished, the house belongs to the person who built it. But for everything to continue like this in Marinaleda, the help of the Junta de Andalucía as competent in housing is necessary. This week, Sergio Gómez wrote an open letter to the department’s councilor, Rocío Díaz, to ask for help in maintaining the idea that has provided housing in the town to everyone who has needed it. Housing developments are done in phases, and these phases need financing above municipal budgets.
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