The Spanish government is preparing a new law to regulate social housing providers
It will register it in Congress through the socialist group to speed up the procedures
BarcelonaThe Ministry of Finance has on the table a bill proposed by non-profit foundations that manage social housing, such as Habitat3 or Provivienda. The entities – grouped under the ALIVAS umbrella – want to create a new legal figure with the aim of expanding this segment of the residential market in Spain, the "social housing providers". According to sources from the Spanish government, they explain to ARA, the intention is for the law to reach Congress "as soon as possible", and for the socialist group to process it because the process is "faster" and has "fewer procedures" if done through parties.
The new designation will formalize the existence of actors who address social housing in a comprehensive manner, from promotion to rental management. "It is a more global view than what we currently have, without segmentation," they assure, and emphasize that it is "the model to follow". It will equate the entities that exist in Spain – focused mainly on the acquisition and management of existing housing – to the Housing Association that predominate in countries like the United Kingdom, which sustainably expand their stock through promotion and acquisition.
From the Spanish government, they see the entities as "a successful model, with Catalonia and Euskadi at the forefront, and which must be extended to the rest of the State" and reinforced. In these two territories, they have a greater weight. According to the director of the Chair of Decent and Sustainable Housing at UPF-BSM, Ramon Bastida, the future law will give entities – which "have extensive knowledge and a lot of experience in project management" – conditions that "allow them to expand" their work.
Along these lines, Albert Ferré, general director of the Habitat3 Foundation – the social housing manager of the third sector in Catalonia – has predicted that the law will propose tax facilities and access to financing with bonuses. For example, foundations " are currently excluded from promotion aid, not all of it, but some of it", while the idea is that, as providers, they can access it, assure sources from the state executive.
The Housing Associations manage practically 100% of social housing in the United Kingdom. In contrast, Bastida explained that currently in Spain "the bulk of social housing development falls on the public sector", with significant prominence of public-private collaboration. The developer builds housing on public land on the condition that it becomes part of the public park after a period of time.
Outside the decree
The concept of "social housing providers" was part of the draft decree regulating the State Housing Plan, but it was dropped in the final version of the text, approved by Pedro Sánchez's executive a couple of weeks ago. Ministry sources reiterate their commitment to regulating this figure, but consider that the norm "must have the rank of law" and that, therefore, the decree "was not the most appropriate instrument". Ferré has positively valued the Spanish government's decision because ALIVAS's proposal "surpasses" and incorporates "more nuances" than the decree's approach.
Bastida also defended the promulgation of the law, because the foundations and associations that manage social housing are a sector that "is not regulated". "We do not have a register of these entities, nor of how many homes they manage," he explained. They control a part of the privately owned social housing units in the State. According to Bastida, they are "half or a little less" of the 600,000 units that make up the social housing stock in the entire State. The other half are publicly owned.