Accommodation. Accommodation. Accommodation. The topic of conversation, whether at work, with friends or even when we trip in the elevator, is the question of housing.
A problem that we urgently need to address, both for reasons of fairness and to protect democracy from a social explosion. An epidemic which is not helped at all by the distortion which assumes that, while in society there are just over 6% of owners – we know that there are still many owners who do not declare their income –, among their colleagues in Congress their presence reaches more than 20%.
A significant representation gap, more than triple, which partly explains the inability to take profound measures and, also, certain shortcomings reiterated by the Minister of Housing during his communication on the national emergency. But it would be unfair (and with anti-politics fascism always infiltrates) to simply say that, for MPs, housing is not a problem at first glance nor even that their families are professional rentiers. We also cannot explain the cowardice of the PSOE in the face of the housing problem, its more or less complicity with the rentier oligarchy, the vulture funds and the entrance hall sightseeing. Obviously both variables influence, but what influences the most is the normalization by a large part of society – which existed until now – of investment in housing, whether to improve low wages ( that it is urgent to increase!), or to speculate and. thus expanding the family heritage. Owners, without counting what the high rents bring them, earn 20,000 euros more per year than the average.
The voracity of multi-owner companies, which have bought back more than half of the houses sold since 2008, of vulture funds that buy entire neighborhoods and of parasitic rentiers who want to reuse themselves, has made the main divide in housing – social class – the The generation gap is added, with great force and almost transversally. Most of us young people born in the 90s belong to the first democratic generation, whose dream is to be able to comfortably pay rent or, in the best case scenario, buy a house. The second residence is far away. I insist, the first gap is class. Generalizing is stupid: my family never had a second home, in the summer we could rent the Borriana apartment and in the summer we couldn’t, we stayed at home and spent time by a friendly swimming pool . Even those who can live on a loan in their parents’ second home or have a half-mortgaged house with their partner know they will have little other property with which to make money.
There is no going back. We have an obligation to transform the unrest that exists in the streets into legislative force and to eliminate parliamentary arithmetic. The alternative is that the far right will eventually do it, and the story that the wolf is coming will do no good.
Even if there is still resistance, it is for this purpose that the entrance hall rentier, a new political hegemony is emerging which breaks with the conception – on which the transition was based – of understanding the right to property as an absolute right. It is indeed a right, but when it collides with others, such as the right to housing, it must be legislated in favor of the general interest.
Until now, laws have been passed in favor of those who have the most. Housing, contrary to what people want us to believe, is a hyperregulated sector, but favorable to the accumulation of wealth and tax evasion. The excuse of jurisdictional imbroglio does not work either. Housing is a regional responsibility and the People’s Party will continue to implement market housing policies. But, just as the CCAA has jurisdiction over health matters, and the price of masks could be regulated, the price of housing can be regulated.
It is urgent that the parliamentary majority takes charge of the citizen unrest that will manifest in the streets on October 13 in Madrid, October 19 in Valencia, October 20 in the Canary Islands and November 9 in Malaga, among other cities.
A new housing policy that decommodifies and privatizes a fundamental right. Houses are meant to be lived in and therefore can only be purchased to live in or rented to others at an affordable price. A fundamental good cannot be a market good with which to speculate, nor a stock market asset. Promote an attractive rental policy, with a broad vision and not only for very vulnerable people, to do this, on the one hand, expand the stock of social housing, and on the other hand, transform, as in Vienna, contracts into contracts permanent, thus promoting roots in the neighborhoods. To protect the right to the city, it is essential to ban vulture funds and restrictively regulate tourist apartments. All accompanied by a regulated pricing policy and a tax policy which does not reward, as until now, the accumulation of housing. We must put an end to the fiscal injustice of paying more taxes to go to work than to accumulate housing or inherit effortlessly.
Therefore, dear colleagues in Congress, fear and legislation must change sides, or else all that will remain is the cry of “Explode yourself!” » You will see.
