Public housing: building is as important as maintaining it

There is a broad political and social consensus that the housing crisis is a priority. We are facing a housing crisis. The increase in population—in twenty years, we have gone from 6 to 8 million inhabitants—and the tourism and services sectors have put maximum pressure on the housing market. Prices are skyrocketing, both for purchase and rental. Young people in particular are finding it very difficult to move out. The average age at which people leave home is 30, well above the European average. The housing problem is very serious in Barcelona and its entire metropolitan area, but in reality it is already affecting the whole of Catalonia, with many small and medium-sized cities also facing difficult situations. Just look at the case of El Vendrell that we explain today, a city that has doubled its population in two decades and is already beginning to gentrify its residents.

Faced with a critical and complex situation, the government is finally betting on promoting measures to truly protect the right to housing with market regulations—the effectiveness of these caps in stressed areas remains to be seen, and they will surely have to be further developed—and, at the same time, on building public housing. Better late than never. The commitment is welcome. Salvador Illa's government plans to build 50,000 between now and 2030. Regulation is necessary, and so is public-private initiative. Both. Because the initial situation is very deficient.

Specifically, the lack of public housing in Catalonia has been around for a long time: we are at the bottom of the European list in this area, with 1.7% of the total housing stock owned by public housing (in the EU, it's 9%, while in France, it's 16%, in Austria, 24%, and in the Netherlands, 30%). With a solid supply from the public authorities, it's possible to influence market prices and, at the same time, set quality standards. This hasn't happened here.

For a few years, the policy of the Catalan authorities was to eventually transfer ownership of public housing to the user, which failed to consolidate the public housing stock. This is no longer the case. So, along with the increase in public housing supply, the challenge becomes the management of these homes. And for what we explained today in the ARAFocusing on the case of Barcelona, ​​the model doesn't quite work. Both the allocation system and the maintenance of the buildings are inefficient. We find ourselves with the paradox that part of the public housing stock is empty: the model is the right of surface, which means that the beneficiary acquires the apartment at a price well below the market for a period of 75 years, after which it is returned to public hands. But it often happens that the successful bidders don't have enough resources to pay the down payment or take out a mortgage.

The other problem, that of maintenance, is also serious. In the Barcelona case, it is becoming clear that the municipal company IMHAB is underfunded, as its workers report in the ARA and the manager himself acknowledges. This means that tenants lack fluid communication with the administration to resolve daily incidents. In short: we need to get down to business and get down to good management.