No other shock plan would be more effective than the one proposed here: starting the construction of 50,000 social rental housing units in the first year; 200,000 before 2026. All that is missing is the political will and the implementation of the task
The difficulties of a considerable part of the population in accessing housing to own or rent at affordable prices have reached the dimensions of a real social emergency in Spain.
Between 2013 and 2024, rents increased by 85% and housing prices by 72%. The increase in salaries during the same period was 23%. The logical consequence is the excessive effort that large social strata of our country, with medium and low incomes, are obliged to make to access decent housing, suffering the extraction of a considerable part of their income.
To deal with this serious situation, measures are proposed, all probably necessary, although short-term, sometimes simplistic and contradictory, in which various phenomena are intertwined, from the action of real estate investment funds to this called touristification and, often based on unverified sources which increase confusion about the nature of the housing problem and the most effective solutions.
However, there seems to be a general consensus on the need for a national plan capable of articulating structural policies allowing public authorities to guarantee citizens’ right to housing.
In this sense, Economistas Frente a la Crisis made public last July a proposal that would make it possible to coordinate cooperation between the Public Administrations involved – Central, Autonomous and Local – with different and complementary powers, for the creation of a public park of social services. rental accommodation of a size comparable to that which already exists in countries where housing problems have been best resolved.
What would be the minimum essential elements that a national housing plan should contain to successfully respond to the social emergency created by difficulties in accessing housing?
1. The creation of a Financial Fund by the General Administration of the State), regulated by a standard having the rank of law which would establish, in a concrete and exhaustive manner, the destination and conditions of use of its resources to finance the construction of the park. social housing for rent.
2. The Fund would be financed mainly by successive issues of ICO bonds guaranteed by the State. Resources for housing construction would therefore be available in a short period of time in order to start construction projects for some 200,000 social rental housing units before the end of 2026, and a larger number during the next legislature, which will be. would require, exceptionally, the simplification of administrative procedures in order to reduce approval and construction times as much as possible.
3. The legal conditions for the use of the Fund’s resources would be formalized and applied through agreements that the autonomous communities and municipal councils would sign with a state fund management company that would channel the resources for the construction of the park. housing. The agreements would determine the conditions and costs of housing construction, their environmental quality, the typology of housing according to the diversity of candidates, the prices of social rents, the provision of public land for their construction, the urban location of the housing. housing (avoid the creation of “ghettos” in cities), etc. The involvement of Administrations in the National Plan will make it possible to rapidly develop the construction of the park.
4. A key element of this proposal is the permanent and inalienable public property character of the properties, as well as the priority nature in the general State budgets of the construction of social rental housing. The subsequent professional management of the park and rentals could be assumed by the Territorial Administrations when they wish or through the State Fund Management Company.
Thus, faced with the constant increase in noise and frustration which now governs the debate on housing, the Economists’ proposal in the face of the crisis seeks exactly the opposite: to offer a concrete and effective mechanism for financial and institutional cooperation, which would allow from the muses (countless and diverse events to increase the supply of rental housing) to the theater (a feasible and agile response mechanism shared by all public administrations for the construction of a public stock of social rental housing), explaining the form in which could realize the constitutional right to housing for all people to whom it is currently prohibited.
The extremes on which this proposition is based guarantee:
a) The launch of a National Housing Plan (which is addressed to the whole Nation would, in itself, be a political message of enormous power) to create a significant stock of social rental housing, as the only measure shock that can urgently start the construction of the first 200,000 housing units in two years, thus initiating an energetic and general response to the social housing emergency created by high rent and housing prices in large regions of the country.
b) The Territorial Administrations, constitutionally competent in the matter, would have powerful incentives for the full exercise of their powers: financing by the General Administration of the State of the construction of a public stock of social rental housing on the estate public contribution to the National Plan. The agreements would be configured as the system that would replace jurisdictional conflicts with cooperation mechanisms between all levels of Administration with the common objective of solving the problem of the increase in the cost of rental housing.
c) The establishment of the social rental housing stock would also act, from the first moment, as the most important mechanism for moderating prices (rental and sale), particularly in tense areas, when a supply of housing emerges social adapted to the characteristics and characteristics. middle and low income demand opportunities.
d) The housing needs of the lowest income population would thus be increasingly met in Spain, by gradually creating a stock of permanent social rental housing, which would also make it possible to raise the real income levels of millions of families, thus putting an end to the regressive mechanism. of income transfer via housing which has exacerbated the inequalities in our country.
In short, the General Administration of the State would fulfill its task of providing the necessary financial resources and the Autonomous Communities and Town Halls would do theirs by providing public land and close management capacity for the urgent commissioning of hundreds of thousands of housing units with social rent. . No other shock plan would be more effective than the one proposed here: starting the construction of 50,000 social rental housing units in the first year; 200,000 before 2026. All that is missing is the political will and the implementation of the task.
(This article is signed by: Julio Rodríguez López, former president of Banco Hipotecario de España and Caja de Ahorros de Granada, member of the board of directors of Economistas Frente a la Crisis (EFC); Jorge Fabra Utray, president of the EFC, and Cecilia Castaño and Antonio González González, vice-presidents of the EFC)
