This Tuesday, the Congress of Deputies rejected the proposal of the tenants’ unions to regulate seasonal and room rentals. What was voted was not the approval of the standard but only its examination and parliamentary treatment.
The news broke with force because Junts changed the direction of its vote a few minutes before the vote so that the rule could not be debated. But we would be mistaken if we believed that the problem comes only from Junts, the PP or Vox. The problem is much deeper and affects all the politicians who, actively or passively, have put themselves at the service of the real estate mafia. For example, at the beginning of September this year, the Ministry of Finance sold a block of 200 homes in Blackrock, in the heart of Madrid, while the media is dominated by headlines claiming that there is a lack of social housing and that the solution is to build more.
There is no mistaking the fact that during the time of the progressive coalition government, the situation for tenants has only gotten worse. The government has not been able to take a single measure that represents a real improvement in the lives of tenants and all those people who have no control over their homes. And it will not happen because we did not try. It was because they did not want to.
During the four years of coalition government, tenants’ unions have made several proposals to institutions and political parties to break the rental bubble and approve legislative reforms that would reverse the situation. These were minimal measures, changes that would help improve the situation somewhat, such as regulating rental prices by law to lower prices, mobilizing the 4 million empty homes or banning tourist apartments. Measures that are being implemented in many capitals in Europe and the United States and that constitute a basic consensus in today’s society, which is increasingly impoverished and with greater difficulty in accessing housing.
In the midst of this brutal crisis, the Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodriguez, began her term calling for the protection of small landlords and, since then, has ignored all our proposals. Despite our warnings, the Government has insisted on leaving the door of temporary rental open to speculators and has refused to introduce a sanctions regime in its Housing Law. The result has been disastrous: a law that landowners circumvent, that the autonomous communities ignore and that real estate agencies ignore. In short, a law that has only served as ammunition against the Government by a turbo-liberal opposition. One more electoral strategy, like many others.
On the other hand, the autonomous governments of the PP and Vox have communicated from the first moment that they will do nothing to change the situation; If you are not a homeowner, you are screwed. In the Community of Madrid, Ayuso continues its project of putting all public resources at the mercy of private real estate speculation, with programs such as the Plan Vive, while giving the seal of excellence to the real estate agency expert in compressing tenants: Rent Surely. Pure hypocrisy since they do not hesitate to use the discourse that links mental health and homelessness for pure parliamentary show.
In short, our leaders have shown us time and again that they have always been on the side of rentiers and vulture funds and that the only laws respected are those that defend the interests of speculators. Meanwhile, in recent years, rents have increased by more than 60% on average, the rise in the Euribor has led to mortgage repayments up to 300 euros more expensive and inflation has devoured workers’ wages. The vast majority of us can’t take it anymore, we live suffocated and increasingly precarious while we see how others make money from all this. Because, at the same time, the concentration of real estate ownership has skyrocketed, owners continue to commit abuses with impunity, real estate companies laugh in our faces by breaking the law and the big banks and supermarkets are making record profits.
The time for politicians is up. The housing problem is too important to leave it in the hands of those who have spent years without putting an end to a system that excludes more people from decent housing every day. We are in a critical situation that only we, those of us who spend half our monthly salary to buy a house, can solve. Those of us who maintain this parasitic system with our efforts and our work.
It is time to act, to organize collectively, so as not to let a single abuse go unchecked. Let us all prepare for a rent strike, as more than 900 tenants are already doing against the Nestar-Lazora vulture fund in Madrid. As more than 90,000 working women did in Barcelona in 1931, obtaining a 50% reduction in rental prices. Let us be clear: it is time to disobey all the unjust laws that allow the majority of us to not have decent, stable and safe housing. Let us show them what we are capable of when we organize. We are not going to pay 1,000 euros for a crappy room. We will no longer accept lies about children returning from abroad who are in reality classified as “tourist apartments”. Because the big problem with speculators is that without our money, they are nothing.
On October 13th, let’s take to the streets of Madrid to tell them that our patience is over. Let’s go on a rent strike.
