Public housing: building is as important as maintaining it
There is 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've gone from 6 to 8 million inhabitants—and the tourism and service 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 they move away from 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 Catalonia as a whole, with many small and medium-sized cities also facing difficult circumstances. Just look at the case of El Vendrell, which we're discussing today, a city that has doubled its population in two decades and is already beginning to experience gentrification among its residents.
Faced with a critical and complex situation, government agencies are finally betting on promoting measures to truly protect the right to housing through market regulations—the effectiveness of these caps in stressed areas remains to be seen, and they will surely need 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 aims to build 50,000 between now and 2030. Regulation is necessary, and so is public-private initiative. Both. Because the initial situation is severely deficient.
Specifically, the lack of public housing in Catalonia has been going on for a long time: we are at the bottom of Europe in this area, with 1.7% of the total housing supply owned by the public sector (in the EU it's 9%, while in France it's 16%, in Austria it's 24%, and in the Netherlands it's 30%). With a solid supply from the administrations, 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 administrations 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 supply, the challenge becomes the management of these homes. And from what we explained today at ARA, focusing 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 paradoxically faced with the fact that part of the public housing stock is empty: the model is the right of way, which means that the beneficiary acquires the apartment at a price well below market for a period of 75 years, after which it is returned to public hands. But it often happens that the successful bidders do not have sufficient 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 reported in the ARA by its workers and acknowledged by the manager himself. This is causing tenants to 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.
