Neither vulnerable nor vultures

Everything is a housing emergency nowadays, listen. Some tell you they will ensure your apartment isn't occupied; others, that they will ensure you aren't kicked out if you have occupied it; those further away, that you collect the rent; and those at the end, that it doesn't cost you an arm and a leg to pay it. When I hear the word "vulnerable," I already suffer, because let's see if a copper thief isn't vulnerable, depending on how you look at it. And when I hear the word "speculators" too, because it might turn out that you, who want to leave the apartment to your grandchildren, are one.

Barcelona, the coast, the Empordà, the Balearic Islands... We are in fashion and all the foreigners with wallets want to live in our home. We have given them facilities as if we had infinite space and as if we all had a home. And meanwhile, we all rush to avoid evictions. Why? To gain one more day? We all rush to create a two-year moratorium for tenants. Why? To gain two more years and have the next ones who govern deal with it? Can we fight against exorbitant rent prices if we don't fight against mortgage interest rates?

If owners of primary residences could save money on their income tax return, buying would be easier. This was the case at one point. This is the case in the Basque Country. You get a bonus—just as you get a bonus, in theory, for buying an electric car—for buying the most important asset of your life, and the one that costs you the most money. If tenants could also deduct this expense, renting would be easier. And if small landlords who apply, by necessity, a cap, had an unbeatable tax treatment, it would also be easier.

I live in an area where there are beautiful, abandoned textile factories. Building homes in these historic spaces would fill the towns and these spaces with life. When politicians talk about “solutions,” I would like to hear a concrete one.