Rosa is 54 years old and works for a large Spanish multinational. He has a salary which he prefers not to reveal, but which he places in the average. “It’s a decent salary, like everyone else, but paying 1,100 euros in rent made me insecure,” he laments. When this woman separated in 2018, she started paying an income of 630 euros, which almost doubled in five years. He also began taking anti-anxiety medications, with anxiety, dizziness and pain gripping his back. And a doubt that arises in assemblies, occupies informal conversations and constantly haunts the mind: “When will I rebuild my life, have something of my own? What future will my children have? Look at the stress this can cause you…”
The General Council of Technical Architecture of Spain (Cgate) and the consultancy firm GAD3 have published the results of a survey which shows that 38% of the population felt anxiety over the possibility of losing their home. Nearly 4 in 10 people have experienced this feeling, which is worse in the case of those who live in rented accommodation: 67% of those who own a home or a mortgage enjoy a feeling of well-being, which drops to 49 % in the case of tenants. “We must not forget that adequate housing is recognized as a human right and that not having it can compromise other rights,” recalled the President of the Council, Alfredo Sanz, during the presentation of the report “The housing situation in Spain”.
That the difficulty of finding decent housing or maintaining it in adequate conditions has an impact on the mental, but also physical health of the population, is proof to which various studies have been devoted for years, but which have not been not yet had a clear impact on public life. policies. “The crisis focuses above all on a problem of high prices in relation to wages which, even if it is perhaps getting worse now, is structural in Spain,” explains the spokesperson for the NGO Provivienda, Andrea Jarabo . For example, in the city of Madrid, the average salary increased by 3.3% over the last decade, compared to 61.8% for rent. This is not an exception, since prices have increased by around 30% on average in large and medium-sized cities.
Alfredo is 35 years old and recently returned to live with his parents. He managed to become self-employed with a few friends ten years ago but after several moves, changes of colleagues and increasingly higher incomes, he decided to take some time off. “The last apartment search was really frustrating, there was nothing below 30% of my salary. I became obsessed, I couldn’t think of anything else. At night I spent hours awake thinking about what I was going to do,” he explains in conversation with elDiario.es.
“We are a generation that has raised issues such as mental health, but this is always approached from a clinical point of view, when living conditions and material deprivation also influence. Talking about mental health means talking about access to housing, decent salaries, unwanted temporary jobs…”, estimates the president of the Spanish Youth Council, Andrea Henry, who recalls that this section of age is closest to the inter-professional minimum wage. . With salary and rent averages in hand, “for a young person to be able to access housing on their own, they must devote 100% of their salary to it”. An example: in 2023, the average rent price in Barcelona was 1,136.40 euros, or 13,636.8 euros per year. A year earlier, according to the latest data provided by the town hall, those under 24 received an average salary of 16,432 euros gross.
Vital projects falling behind schedule
According to the latest study by the Emancipation Observatory, the average age for gaining independence in Spain is the highest since records began. It stands at 30.4 years, well above the European average of 26.3 years. “Many vital, personal and family projects are delayed,” insists Henry, who recalls that “a mental health problem is instability, thinking about the moment when we will be able to emancipate ourselves alone or build our life from there.” Are you planning to have a baby? “I consider it very far away if I can’t even pay my rent alone,” laments Alfredo.
“Young people are emancipating themselves in some of the worst conditions in recent years. We see that they are forced to move to big cities, where housing prices are much higher,” explains Julia García, head of the youth program of Oxfam Intermón, who, together with the Youth Council, prepared the report “Aquilibristas: the acrobatics of young people to maintain their mental health in an unequal society”. This indicates that 40% of people under 30 believe they will live worse than their parents and will suffer from episodes of anxiety and low mood.
Rosa carries in her backpack the weight of running away, but also the anxiety for the future of her children. “I have a 23-year-old who studies and another 35-year-old who earns 1,200 euros, whom I help, because at that age, she cannot go live with her boyfriend, nor have children “, she said. laments.
Housing problems not only aggravate those already suffered by those living in other vulnerable situations, but they also push thousands of people into the abyss of precariousness. “In addition to making certain populations more vulnerable, rental has impoverished four out of ten households, 250,000 of which have average incomes,” explains Jarabo. Data was taken from the report “Prevention and attention to residential exclusion: explanatory factors”which Provivienda published in 2023 and which was financed by the Ministry of Social Rights.
Although the most determining factor is accessibility, experts also highlight other points that also concern stability and mental health. “The situation of unsanitary housing, fuel poverty, lack of supplies, isolation or overpopulation…”, lists Jarabo. Precisely, in the first report “When the house makes us sick”in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, in 2018, it was already indicated that 17.9% of the poorest households do not have enough space, which has an impact on situations of depression, stress and stress. ‘insomnia. Furthermore, he stressed that this does not only happen in the most precarious housing. “Habitability problems also arise in households who reside in rental housing and who cannot afford to repair their home or whose limited bargaining power with the property to pay for repairs leads them to live in situations of serious difficulty. »
The Mental Health Strategy of the National Health System 2022-2026 already recognizes the importance of making professionals aware of the emergence of new vulnerabilities linked to social issues, such as difficulty accessing housing. These are the so-called social determinants of health, recognized by organizations such as the World Health Organization itself and which the government has placed emphasis on in recent years. “We can’t address mental health if we don’t address the rest of the determinants. There are other policies that are beneficial, such as those on mobility, the environment or housing,” recognized the minister of the sector, Mónica García, shortly after her arrival in the Executive.
Last week, the leader of Más Madrid experienced a confrontation in Congress with the representative of the Popular Party, Noelia Núñez, who also insisted on the idea that “young people suffer from anxiety” due to economic and structural problems. “On the second day of the month, the rent has already swallowed up your salary,” he told the minister. “Do you know what affects mental health? “You voted against lowering citizens’ rents,” García responded. The PP has refused to apply in the territories where it governs the National Housing Law, which allows it to declare stressed areas and limit prices. “This is an attack on property,” said Madrid President Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
Ángeles has a disability of 65%, for which she receives a benefit of 517 euros. “260 people come to my house,” he explains. She is 60 years old and is forced to share an apartment in a resource managed by the NGO Provivienda. It was her only escape when she divorced to escape an abusive situation. “It’s very hard to have to live alone, stuck in the room, because the others are roommates, nothing more,” she says in conversation with elDiario.es from her room, where she wonders if for the owners ” it’s not better to lose a little and find good people “Today, they ask you for a guarantee, one month of agency — prohibited by law but which some agencies continue to ask for with excuses like cleaning. property or anti-squatter insurance — and the deposit “It’s impossible.”
“It’s good to share an apartment, what’s not good is to do it by force, because you have no other choice or with people you don’t know at all and that sometimes makes coexistence difficult,” Henry explains of a problem that becomes chronic among young people, but it extends to older populations, like in Angeles. “Before, it was mainly focused on university students, Erasmus students… but now it’s not like that anymore. There are young people with a salary that could be considered decent or who have opposition and cannot afford the price of a house. But this is also seen in migrant families, single mothers… who see their possibilities of access to housing reduced.”
Rosa constantly repeats the message that “there is no way out”: “We don’t even have a house and we can only think that at least, if our mothers make her pay, at the last minute we have a place to drop dead. But there is also in his speech an aura of optimism, vindication and rebellion. “I am returning the non-payment insurance and thanks to the Tenants Union meetings you see that you are not alone, because when you just want to cry and you can’t breathe, you have to ask for help. I also don’t sit around waiting for things to be fixed. On October 13, we have a demonstration to say that we are there. “It’s for my health!”
