“We will make access to housing a right and no longer a problem. The Spanish leader, the socialist Pedro Sanchez, announced on Wednesday the 19 welfare state”.
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Over-indebtedness, social exclusion and the impossible emancipation of young people: a month before local and regional elections on May 28, the left-wing government is multiplying announcements of responding to the housing shortage, determined to make it one of the main campaign issues. . .
On Tuesday, April 18, the Council of Ministers had already approved the mobilization of around 20,000 apartments owned by Sareb, the public body created in 2013 to absorb thousands of toxic assets sold by banks after the financial crisis and real estate by were confiscated in 2008. They can be sold to the regions and municipalities to use them as social housing. Nearly 14,000 more, already occupied by families in vulnerable situations, benefit from low rents. And 15,000 can be built on land ceded by the administration.
“Spain is the fourth country in Europe where families have to spend the most money to pay for their accommodation,” Pedro Sanchez recalled on April 17. In the Madrid region, on average, a person earning the minimum wage spends 65% of their income on housing, according to the Observatory for Accessible Housing of the Provivienda Association. In Catalonia or the Balearic Islands, this proportion reaches 50%.
More social housing
Given this situation, Parliament should also pass the “first housing law of democracy” in Spain by the end of the month. After being blocked for more than a year, the final text was validated by the Socialist Party and the far-left party Unidas Podemos, ruling in coalition and in the minority, and their allies in Parliament, the Basque and Catalan Independence Parties.
This text limits rent increases, bans the sale of public housing to hedge funds, as happened after the 2008 financial crisis, offers tax breaks to landlords who cut rents, and allows city halls to increase property taxes on vacant apartments.
The government’s goal is also to bring the public rental housing stock to 20% of the total stock. A challenge considering that Spain currently has barely 2.5% social housing, far from the European (9%) or French (16%) average.
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