A constitutional right. A business. A financial refuge. A question of political confrontation. And above all a harsh reality which excludes new generations from access to property and forces them to face an increasingly tense rental market. This is all housing. Added to this of course is the reason why this Sunday, around thirty organizations, led by the Madrid Tenants Union, called for a demonstration between Atocha and the Plaza de Callao, under the slogan “housing is a right, not a deal.” “.
Housing and its unattainable prices have been placed on the public agenda in the middle of a crossroads of reproaches between parties, autonomous communities and even between government partners without effective measures being visible on the immediate horizon to stop the uncontrollable increase prices. The minister of the sector, Isabel Rodríguez, affirms that this is because there are communities, notably that of Madrid, which refuse to apply the price index of the Housing Law due to “ideological dogmatism” . And on the side of the regional government, they defend this because left-wing policies are “ineffective and interventionist” and because the price index is “real estate suicide” which favors the underground economy.
The truth is that Spain, whose government approved the first democratic housing law in the previous legislature, is part of the club of EU countries with the lowest percentage of social housing built. She occupies 18th place. At the bottom of the ranking are Romania, with 1.5%; Estonia, with 1.7%; Croatia, with 1.8%; Portugal, with 2% and Spain, with 2.5%. All this compared to the Netherlands, with 30%, followed by Austria, with 24%, and Denmark, with 20.9%. And Spaniards are increasingly divided between those who accumulate properties and obtain rental income and citizens who, with stable work, cannot access housing either to become owners or to rent due to exorbitant prices.
That the right and the left do not agree on how to confront the problem is not a surprise, but the novelty is that the left has found in housing a reason to clash, even between government partners . So much so that this Sunday Sumar will be present, like Podemos, at a demonstration during which the minister of the sector, from the PSOE, will be asked to resign.
And Isabel Rodríguez, who does not share many of the interventionist proposals of her partners, such as the ban on buying and selling for a certain time as proposed by Yolanda Díaz, is reasonably satisfied with the degree of compliance with the housing commitments acquired . the coalition agreement.
For example, among what has already been accomplished, the development of the measures provided for in the Law on the Right to Housing to contain prices stands out, including both tax incentives and the reference price index that allows identify the municipalities and districts that are considered. sensitive areas, to promote the implementation of regulations. But also the extension of the average income (€37,800) of the threshold for access to support measures for people affected by the rise in mortgage rates, the consolidation of the Young Rental Bonus as an essential element to facilitate access to rent affordable and the promotion of a register of empty housing, based on the definition and information published by the INE in coordination with the autonomous communities and town halls.
From Rajoy’s 453 million to 3,500 in 2024
It is precisely with the autonomous communities with which the ministry maintains an open war, not because of the lack of resources but because of the history of responsibility for the imbalance between supply and demand and high prices. Since Pedro Sánchez has been president of the government, the budgets of this chapter have increased eightfold, going from the 453 million allocated by the executive of Mariano Rajoy to the current 3,500. In fact, the housing policies applied by the autonomous communities are 70% financed by the General Administration of the State, despite the sharing of powers.
The Ministry of Housing understands that the Spanish government does not and will not lack resources, but it also urges communities to dedicate more money in their budgets to this chapter, following the example of Catalonia, whose president , Salvador Illa, has just announced that it will supplement the aid it receives from the State with 1.1 billion each year from its own resources.
Data from different regional budgets show in black and white the percentage of money that each administration has allocated to housing policies over the past four years. The proportion is sometimes quite eloquent.
Over the last four years, Andalusia has budgeted a total of 1,688 million euros, of which 859, 50.87%, have been transferred by the Spanish government under the National Housing Plan, nominal subsidies and of the Rent Bonus for young people. Aragon, for its part, received between 2021 and 2024 a total of 168 million out of the 240 million budgeted, which represents 70% of the funds allocated to housing, including in this case also those provided by the Recovery Plan, Transformation and Resilience.
Asturias allocated 269 million euros to housing policies, of which 53.5% were transferred from the State (144 million), while the proportion in the Balearic Islands increased to 63.7%, in the Canary Islands at 51.26% and, in Cantabria, at 63.7%. 88.86% (90 million out of the 102 budgeted).
Castilla y León, for its part, has budgeted 174 million between 2021 and 2024 while the amount transferred to it by the Spanish government amounts to 327, which represents an overfinancing of 187% by the State. Alfonso Fernández Mañueco is the region that spends the least money on housing. In Castile-La Mancha, the effort was greater on the part of the Authority, since of the 673 million only 39% were transfers from the State, while in Catalonia the proportion was 50.67% of the 1,971 million budgeted.
In the Valencian Community, which, along with Catalonia and Andalusia, was one of the autonomy that allocated the most money to housing policies until reaching 1,459 million, less than half (43.70%) came from the programs of the General Administration of the State. Extremadura was one of those that benefited the least from Spanish government funds, since of the 432 million allocated, only 36% came from state transfers. Much less than what was planned in Galicia, where the amount transferred by the State represented 62% of the 564 million budgeted by the Xunta.
Madrid, with one of the governments most critical of the housing policies of the coalition chaired by Pedro Sánchez, allocated 1.400 million, of which almost 67% was financed by state transfers, while ‘In Murcia the percentage between what was budgeted by the community and what it received from the Spanish government exceeded 102%. Navarra was proportional to the autonomy to which the least state funds came, only 18.7% of the 328 million that appear in its budgets between 2021-2024, followed by the Basque Country, where the percentage between what was budgeted and what was transferred was 33%, while in La Rioja it was close to 43%.
In no community is there any available information on what was done each year or how much money was transferred in budgets from one year to the next. But what cannot be said in any way is that the problem is due to lack of funding.
