Habemus Government. And now that?

Finally there is a Government. After almost four months since the general elections were held, almost four months since that night of July 23 in which millions of people breathed a sigh of relief, this Thursday, finally, we were able to do it again. This being already a true fact, now it is time for this Government – ​​once again a coalition – to demonstrate its usefulness for the social majorities of this country. There are, apparently, four years ahead. However, there are emergencies that should be attended to without delay or euphemisms.

Emergencies are many. I am not going to mention them all, although obviously making available all the tools to stop the genocide that is being perpetrated in Gaza is the most clamorous, the establishment of legal and safe means to guarantee life on our borders, sexist violence or the very “climate emergency” are some clear examples. But of course there is another emergency – housing – that must be addressed immediately.

Access to housing is the main pending issue not only for the young people of this country, but also for the 17% of families who remain in a situation of severe poverty after paying the mortgage or rent, as stated in the recent Provivienda report. “Prevention and attention to residential exclusion.”

The coalition agreement between the PSOE and Sumar, which we learned about a few weeks ago and which will guide the legislature, contains very positive elements to continue the path of democratic and social deepening that our country needs. The reduction of working hours without a salary reduction or the extension of maternity and paternity leave up to twenty weeks are some examples of necessary advances contemplated in the pact.

However, in terms of housing it is necessary to go much further than what is included in the agreement to confront what we could describe as the great black hole of our country. Above all, taking into account that, for some time now, the bulk of salary improvements have been absorbed by the beneficiaries of the increase in the price of rents and mortgages. An extractive drainage of work that neutralizes increases in the SMI, salary increases by agreement and updates of public social benefits. Housing already absorbs 42% of the income of the poorest 20% in Spain, according to the report Income and expenses: an equation that determines our quality of life from the Foessa Foundation published on November 7.

The dynamics of the current real estate market are three steps ahead of parliaments and governments. One of the clearest examples is the imperative need to regulate seasonal rentals, which serve as a “gateway” through which rentals outside the Urban Leases Law sneak in, eliminating all types of guarantees for their tenants. Real estate portals, in interested collaboration with the speculative spiral, offer more and more advertisements for housing converted into seasonal apartments. Thus, it is not surprising that in large cities like Madrid, renting rooms (be careful, rooms) already costs the same as complete homes just five years ago. The lack of legislation and the eternal appeal to “the free will of the parties” – as if owners and tenants negotiated on an equal footing – serve as a subterfuge to evade the Urban Leases Law as well as any reform introduced by the Housing Law.

The urgency of the situation also does not allow us to maintain promises that are prolonged over time until they are never fulfilled or in a merely testimonial manner, as is happening with the “corporate social responsibility” of SAREB and the public housing stock. It is essential to include results obligations when we talk about “increasing the public stock of affordable rental housing”, indicating deadlines and percentage of financing allocated for that objective, under penalty of incurring a commitment with good will but with little capacity to materialize in the short term. and medium term. Perhaps the negotiation of the next General Budgets is a good time for this.

Furthermore, it is time to refine so that indeterminate concepts such as “affordable rent” do not serve as a euphemism for small price reductions that continue to be unaffordable for the vast majority of families and individuals. This absence of tangible objectives contrasts with the precision that we do find in measures such as publicly endorsing or subsidizing the purchase of housing (“help to buy“), to which President Sánchez once again referred in his inauguration speech and which indirectly feeds the current price level and, therefore, benefits the speculative logic that works on the expectation of a constant increase in housing prices.

On the other hand, mechanisms for the application of rental price regulation are necessary on an imperative basis and for reasons of general interest, beyond the ideological position of the autonomous government in power, or else we will be passively assisting for four more years. to the speculative race that is promoted by regional and municipal governments where the real estate market acts, de facto, as a regulator of non-housing policy (Madrid rules).

In mortgage matters and taking into account the increases in interest rates applied by the European Central Bank, it is only fair that financial institutions undertake to lower their profit expectations so that mortgaged people can meet the payment of their mortgages and that this does not occurs only at the cost of extending the mortgage payment for longer or postponing the payment of interest.

Finally, if we talk about evictions or situations of violation of Human Rights such as the one that has been occurring for three years in Cañada Real, since the electricity supply was cut off, it is imperative to incorporate the Human Rights perspective, this is to become take charge of the situation -beyond- formal powers and step on the accelerator in meeting the objectives of the 2030 Agenda so that, as the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has pointed out so many times, states begin to committing to positive obligations which, in the context of the current uncontrolled real estate market, means moving from words to actions, from “promote” to “guarantee”.

One last thought. Coalition governments must be able to impose the guarantee of rights that the entire society demands so that the law that governs is not that of “every man for himself” and thus be able to stop the disbelief and disaffection on which the right-wing options advance. and extreme right although they have apparently been caricatured these days. It was possible to avoid it in July. It is necessary to consolidate it now.