He wants Spain to go from 3% to 20% of public housing to lower the age of emancipation and cushion the rise in rent
The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, announced this Sunday that the Executive will approve this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers the mobilization of 50,000 homes from Sareb –formerly known as a bad bank– for affordable rentals for young people and families.
Sánchez has made this advance at the closing of the PSOE Municipal Convention that is being held this weekend in Valencia, which has been attended by mayoral candidates from the main cities in Spain.
After this week the Government reached an agreement to carry out the Housing Law, Sánchez has stated that he wants to go “further” and make thousands of properties available to young people and families.
In this sense, Moncloa sources specify that the Executive will offer municipalities and autonomous communities 21,000 homes and will promote the social rental of 14,000 already inhabited in that park. In addition, they will promote the construction of up to 15,000 public homes on land available from Sareb.
The President of the Government wanted to make this announcement in Valencia because, as he stated, it was together with Madrid, “the epicenter of the excesses of the PP” and in this way mark differences with the housing policy carried out by the ‘populares’.
Thus, he has defended that his Executive provides solutions while the PP causes “thunderous failures”, as he has described the PP’s policy in this matter. He also hopes that citizens will value him in the next municipal and regional elections on May 28. “That’s what these elections are about,” he indicated.
The Prime Minister has described access to housing as a “real problem” and that Spain maintains “unacceptable” emancipation ages, much higher than the European average. He has even pointed out that this matter segregates society since “70% of inequalities” are generated by the difficulty of accessing decent housing, according to what he has reported.
In this sense, it has lamented the low percentage of public housing in Spain compared to its European partners -3% compared to 9% of the EU average- and has set itself the objective of increasing it to 20%, at the level of the most developed countries of the continent. “I want Spain to be a country that has 20% public housing,” he stated. He has also added that Spain is the third country in the EU with the most empty houses.
In this way, it hopes to promote access to housing, especially for young people, and to lower the average age of emancipation. In addition, with a notable increase in public housing, it hopes to cushion the increase in real estate prices.
Sánchez has also pointed out that Spain is the fourth country in the EU that makes the most financial effort to pay the rent because, as indicated between 2014 and 2021, the average price per square meter has increased by 11% on average when it comes to housing in ownership and 45% for rent.
FAILED RECIPES OF THE PP
The head of the Executive has charged against the PP and has blamed it for the current situation because what he did during his years in government was to turn a constitutional right “into a commodity”, a policy that in his opinion was a “resounding failure”.
This is how he has tried to dismantle the arguments that the right uses, according to what he has indicated: that there be more availability of free land, since what he did was “to stoke the real estate bubble and speculation, in addition to the little envelopes” in reference to cases of urban corruption .
He has also criticized the fact that they implemented tax discounts that only benefited real estate developers and also privatized public housing that the administrations built “with the efforts of taxpayers” and sold it “to vulture funds.”
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