“The Government is going to create a great public housing companycapable of building and managing housing from the General State Administration”. Pedro Sanchez The Federal Congress of the PSOE in Seville has closed with this “announcement.” An “important” announcement, if you ask at Ferraz; but that “generates many doubts,” say social groups. “We have to move from statements to facts; Many housing measures have been promised, but investment has not increased nor have government assets been used to boost public housing,” says Jaime Palomera, researcher at the Barcelona Urban Research Institute (IDRA). Ministry of Housing No further details have been provided at this time.
Sánchez has presented the plan as a kind of response to the “attacks” received by the Housing Lawapproved – amidst criticism – a little over a year ago. Valeria Racu, spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants’ Union, considers that the PSOE is only looking for “an electoral leader” and asks for more firm steps to prove otherwise: “These are empty words for now.. We have to see if the Government finally dares to take forceful measures in the face of the crisis we are experiencing and that they themselves, in part, have caused. If the rules of the game do not change, This new agency, no matter how much it is public, will end up functioning as a large fork more“. The Ministry headed by Isabel Rodríguez has limited itself to saying that “the company will be incorporated as a great instrument into the housing policy” carried out by the Executive.
The leader of the socialists, re-elected this weekend with 90% of the votes, has also not detailed what the relationship between the new company and the rest of the administrations will be like. Communities and town councils have part of the powers in terms of housing, a “handicap” that can slow down the growth of the public stock in the planned terms. “The Government, until now, had a problem, and that is that it gave land to regional and municipal companies to develop their projects, but not all of them collaborated. The creation of a company at the state level breaks with this scheme and allows the State to build and manage on its own land,” insists Eduardo González de Molina, professor and author of the article Public-community collaboration: a new solution to generate more affordable housing.
Spain currently has 150 public housing companies: 17 regional and the rest local. “The problem is that, between them, they manage only 300,000 homes; that is, 1% of the total park. The figure is ridiculous,” continues the researcher. The European average is around 9.3%. “The solution is to compete with existing developers; do it from the public sector. This is an issue that has been on the table for a long time, but we cannot make the mistake of use housing financed with State resources to later sell it on the marketas Sareb did”, denounces Jaime Palomera. 43% of the houses that belong to the bad bankalso publicly owned, they remain empty.
Spain has 150 public housing companies: 17 regional and the rest local
“According to his statements [las de Pedro Sánchez]we understand that the will of the central government is to have a tool that allows you to directly boost and promote the construction of social housing, and then, managing it in perpetuity. If the proposal materializes in these terms, it is good news and can lay the foundations for quelling the housing problem in the medium and long term. We insist, in the medium and long term, because the processes are long and The results would not be noticed until future legislatures“warns Jon Bakaikoa, spokesperson for the Housing area of the think tank Ideas at War. Sareb was reformulated at the time to promote, according to the paper, rentals at affordable prices, although in reality “it behaves like another vulture fund.” The company, in any case, has an expiration date: 2027, just when Pedro Sánchez’s fourth term ends.
The disappearance of the ‘bad bank’?
He timing It’s capricious. The Government of Pedro Sánchez must decide in just over three years on the future of the Sareb. The options are clear: dissolve it or extend its duration. The creation of a new state company to “build and manage” public housing could clear up these unknowns. “SAREB is not the authorized or relevant instrument for this purpose. The logical thing would be to bet on its disappearance and that all its assets – both land and homes – would become part of this public entity. The company, in this way, would have apartments built to rent and also public lots where developments can be developed without depending on the collaboration of other administrations,” emphasizes Eduardo González de Molina.
“If this company comes to manage and undersell public land and public housing… For that we already have Sareb. We have been supporting it with our taxes for ten years and yet it dares to order evictions almost daily. “This agency will not make sense if it does not serve to take the home off the market.”denounces Valeria Racu, spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants’ Union. Social groups agree when it comes to pointing out the “failure” of the bad bank as a driving agent and consider that the transfer of their assets can be “a golden opportunity” to speed up the start-up of the new company, especially in stressed areas. The coalition government increased investment in housing reaching around 0.3% of GDP, still far from the European average, which is around 1%.
The ball, on the roof of the communities
The OECD recently published an investigation which confirmed that 14% of the protected housing stock in the member countries was promoted and managed by state companies. Denmark, New Zealand, Malta, Slovenia either Canada They mark the steps to follow in this matter. “We have examples that prove that this is not an occurrence. The best way to develop this model is to combine a state company with other regional and local companiesto exceed the goal of one million officially protected homes. It is also a way to put pressure on the communities, because a single company cannot manage a million properties,” González de Molina acknowledges.
The budget items in the coming years will be crucial to boost the public housing stock. “The housing situation is the big problem for Spaniards and this announcement [el de una nueva empresa estatal] cannot be used to stop acting in other ways; It is necessary to promote indefinite contracts, end tax credits and prohibit the purchase of housing for non-residential purposes,” Jaime Palomera slips. Eduardo González de Molina subscribes to this proposal and ruling: “A large public company is not going to immediately solve the real estate crisisbut we are 45 years late; almost half a century without developing article 47 of the Constitution. “If we don’t promote a large public company, our children will have the same problems as us.”
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