Housing is one of the main problems facing Spain today. This is not something new, in fact it has been going on for decades, but with increasing tourist pressure, skyrocketing rental prices across the country and the next National Housing Plan in preparation by the government , the debate animates the streets. . How did we get here? And above all, how to get out of it?
These are some of the questions they tried to answer during the meeting of members organized by elDiario.es “Housing: future and solutions”, Jorge Dioni, writer and author of “The Spain of Swimming Pools” and “The Troubles of the cities”; Alejandro Inurrieta, doctor in economics, housing specialist; and Valeria Racu, member of the Tenants Union.
“We have normalized rentism, doing business with housing, playing with people’s lives is something legitimate and from which you can make money. “You can invest your savings so someone like me can’t have a house.” It is with these words that Valeria Racu, whose union called for a demonstration on October 13 in Madrid, summed up the current situation.
A country of rentiers is a paralyzed country, according to Jorge Dioni, who explains that this idea is not really particularly revolutionary: it was already assumed by the liberals of the 19th century. “The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith says that there are two enemies of the nation: the man of the system and the rentier man,” he adds in the conversation moderated by journalist Gumersindo Lafuente.
This is the consequence of years in which money invested in housing “ended up in the hands of landlords, consultants and the real estate lobby”, with a “very high” housing stock, but with this same stock of housing for rent or rent. very restricted public housing. An x-ray produced by Alejandro Inurrieta, with a particular focus on these lobbies and their pressures, which he himself experienced. But not only that: also in the “mafias” of real estate portals like Idealista.
“They are the ones who threaten and tell landlords not to respect the housing law, and I know it,” said Inurrieta, who also criticized the fact that the state relies on these same sites to obtain certain data on which housing policies are based. . “They prepare rental contracts in which it is specified in a paragraph that the tenant undertakes not to benefit from the advantages of housing law.” “They are the ones who create this security psychosis” about the occupation with certain media, “while the figures say the opposite and they make gold for the alarm companies.”
a little scandalous
“When the socialist Minister of Housing says ‘please, let’s ask apartment owners to behave’, it’s a bit scandalous from an intellectual point of view”, continues Lafuente, regarding the declarations of the Minister Isabel Rodríguez, who demanded solidarity from the owners of the housing. in the face of rising rental prices. “Governments are responsible but owners are guilty. To date, no government, whatever its color, has really dared to tackle the problem at its roots.” “This means removing all the privileges of speculation, making the housing trade impossible,” criticized Racu, who denounced a lack of political will.
We must recognize, as a civil society, as a social problem, that rentism as a system is a cancer for our population, because it consists of extracting rents from the poorest classes for the richest classes.
Furthermore, Inurrieta indicated that “the State has practically no power in matters of urban planning and housing” at present, but that it is the autonomous communities that have it, but that this lack of inaction comes from the fact that each party does not want to “give up their piece of the pie”. A cake – a fundamental necessity – which “ceased to be a good for public use and became a commercial good”.
rent strike
And what could these possible solutions be? Some of them consist of controlling real estate speculation, making land a public good and betting on new forms of construction, faster and less expensive than current ones. Among them, Racu highlights one: union organization.
“Organized collectively, we defeated the largest landowner in the world who wanted to evict 200 families and not a single one remains,” explained Valeria Racu. The Tenants’ Union, in addition to this month’s protest, is proposing a rent strike through which tenants will not stop paying their rent, but will stop paying clauses that they consider abusive, such as insurance non-payment or community insurance. “Individually we are not going to do much, if we do it collectively we can really overcome this system,” Racu concluded. “Every month, with my efforts, with my salary and with my money, I support the rentier system. » “If we organize and move towards this rent strike, we will clearly bring the system under control. »
