2023-04-25 16:25:53
On April 13, the coalition government, together with ERC and EH Bildu reached an agreement, after 4 long years, for the approval of the Housing Law. This Law, although it presents some improvements that the working class welcomes with breath, is far from solving the DRAMA of housing in the Spanish State. In fact, there have already been various organizations such as the PAH and the tenant union who have warned that this pact opens the door to fraud and price increases and does not provide real solutions to the housing crisis.
By Mercè Roure, Red Current
Some of these new measures are the expansion of “stressed areas” in the rental market, the redefinition of large holders (now, anyone who owns more than 5 homes is considered a large holder, when before there were 10) or the Elimination of agency fees by the tenant. All these measures still present gaps to be filled. For example, the declaration of a neighborhood or a
municipality as a “stressed area” will depend on each Autonomous Community and, we already have Mrs. Ayuso announcing that it will not apply the future law -if it is approved- and that, in addition, it will take it to the Constitutional Court. We started off well.
The Tenants Union, for its part, has exposed all the maneuvers that the agreed agreement allows to continue increasing rental prices. For example, it is announced that the new price cannot exceed that of the previous contract but, firstly, it is very easy to hide said information and, secondly, the price can be raised by passing it off as IBI expenses, alleging reforms or putting the apartment for seasonal rent, with which the landlords could make increases without any type of regulation.
This future Law, moreover, does not end evictions. Social movements have been demanding the obligation for large owners to offer social rent to all those families that prove vulnerability, but the Law agreement ignores these demands and all it does is lengthen the eviction process up to 2 years and obliges the owners to submit to mediation, which can be respected or not. We translate: more anguish for families at risk of eviction, vulture banks and funds will continue to evict at will and will continue without being penalized, as if kicking out a family and condemning them to sleep on the street was not a crime.
The PAH has also expressed its concern: “We are concerned that this new agreement contemplates the use of funds from the State Housing Plan to pay for the rehousing of evicted families or even “reduced” social rents, which in practice will consist of a new transfer of public money into the hands of large holders such as banks and vulture funds, instead of making them co-responsible for the current housing emergency and mobilizing their empty homes.” You can say higher, but not clearer.
The reality is that in this country there is no public housing, there are no resources for social services and there are no housing alternatives for those families who cannot afford a home, that is why any Law that does not start with immediately ban evictions and do not advocate the expropriation of the empty houses of the banks and vulture funds to put them at the service of the
creation of a public Housing Park, it is completely insufficient.
That is why we make a call to continue organizing ourselves in the neighborhoods with our neighbors to mass movement for housing in the Spanish State until it is a guaranteed right for everyone, that no one is sleeping on the street and that life is above the capital and profits of a few.
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