Sánchez and housing: now let's all run to it

You already know that today is a day we started at the very top, first thing in the morning with the tick-tock of a countdown so that tomorrow the housing decree-law can be approved. It is a tense countdown, with about 500 people camping in Madrid, in about eighty tents, in a repetition of what was the 15-M, which have appeared after the emotional impact of the eviction of the 87-year-old lady from Madrid, Maricarmen. The majority of the campers are young, and the protests in Barcelona have blocked some streets early in the morning, and will continue until the evening, when Pedro Sánchez will come to present some awards at the Palace of Congresses located at the top of the Diagonal and will be met with a citizen protest called by the Tenants' Union.That is why yesterday Pedro Sánchez wanted to calm the nerves with an announcement that aimed to be empathetic:Pedro Sánchez: “Maricarmen, I have a message for you. The government is working against the clock to bring the royal decree-law on housing on Tuesday. And I ask the parliamentary groups that we make one last effort so that it is validated in the national Parliament, for Maricarmen and for the millions of Spaniards who suffer from the housing crisis. Because it is not a question of ideology, it is a question of humanity”.The problem, President Sánchez, is that it is indeed a question of ideology. If it were only a matter of humanity, it would already be solved. The problem for Sánchez is that he needs the votes of parties like Podemos and Sumar, who see landlords as a whole, and he needs the votes of Junts and the PNV, who want protection for small landlords. Consider that, in Catalonia, approximately 90% of rental housing is in the hands of small holders. A small holder is considered to be any individual or company that owns fewer than 5 properties in stressed areas.Yesterday, a very direct source from Junts told me that they were not optimistic. “If it depended on the PSOE and us it would be easy, but with Sumar/Podem and their ideological entrenchment everything becomes complicated”. For Junts, the red line for not agreeing to the decree is that vulture funds and large real estate companies are lumped together with small property owners, and that the cost of suspending evictions is passed on to the small property owner. The idea is that “what the vulnerable tenant cannot pay the landlord, the State should pay”.Well, based on what has emerged this morning, among the measures that the Spanish government has confirmed to ARA are being negotiated are: protecting against evictions (the fine print remains to be seen), prohibiting speculative housing purchases by vulture funds (this measure could gather consensus from both the left and Junts and the PNB), stabilizing rental contracts (this is one of the main demands of the Tenants' Union, which wants indefinite contracts, but Junts and the PNB do not view this measure favorably), and tax bonuses for tenants (Junts requested this, but it remains to be seen if Sumar and Podemos, who were reluctant, will also accept it).In short, we have protests underway, including a 15-M style encampment and a decree law that is being negotiated with urgency, to stop the blow. But we have lost fifteen years. Because it is not that we are in the same place as the 15-M, but that we are worse off, because 15 years have passed and there is a lack of affordable housing. When it turns out that housing is personal and social stability and means birth rates, the failure is collective.I do not know if the decree will have the votes, it remains to be seen whether it will lean more to the right or to the left, and it must find a balance that will require everyone to compromise. But it will be a stopgap, a temporary solution. That is the tragedy. Now, it is clear that we are at a political and social turning point, because there are people of all ages who have no idea where they will live when their contract expires. Good morning.