Thousands of people take the streets in Madrid to claim that housing is not a business
The streets of Madrid listen again to the desperate claim of a solution for the housing crisis that drowns thousands of its neighbors. From Atocha to the Puerta del Sol, headquarters of the regional government, hundreds of people claim this Sunday that “housing is not a market good, but a right.”
“It affects young people, because I see it with my son, but also the elderly,” says Charo, 65. At the doors of Retiro and with a rental contract that ends in a year, the worst is feared: “I will charge less. I retire and I don't have a roof, ”he cares. His brother Raúl, 55, is not alien either. “I was born in Carabanchel and after a lifetime living in neighborhoods of the city, I have been expelled. I have found an apartment in Leganés, where they have welcomed me, but I have been expelled from Madrid, ”he laments.
With this, Carla goes. He is 54 years old and after more than two decades of rent, his homemade needed the property to live. He had to look for life at the high point of the rental bubble. “I am paying the double,” denounces, to claim that “with speculation and rentism.” “They are late. Or this ends or we will go worse, ”he says.
The calls, the habitat24 platform, which brings together some 40 social and neighborhood groups that make up part of the associative fabric of Madrid, intend with this march to reissue the success of the protest of October 13. “Four months ago, Madrid citizens clearly expressed that institutions were not making the right decisions to solve the housing emergency we are suffering,” they say. And, “yet, despite the massive citizen mobilization, administrations have continued without taking the necessary measures.”
The Manifesto has focused its demands in the Community of Madrid, whom they accuse of “continuing to favor the business of investment funds, rentists and speculators, sometimes with the complicity of certain municipalities.” “It is time for Ayuso to stop governing for the economic powers that have appointed her and starts doing it to guarantee the rights of all citizens,” they claim.
They criticize the Vive Plan or the last affordable housing raffle of the municipal housing and land company in Madrid (EMVS), in which one in five homes was without awarding; But also the “deliberate abandonment of Cañada Real”, which has assumed Spain a pull of ears of the Council of Europe for not guaranteeing the right to decent housing or health protection, especially children and adults, who carry years without light; or the situation of the dozens of families affected by the works of line 7b of Metro, promoted by the Government of Esperanza Aguirre with technical reports against, in San Fernando de Henares and Coslada, “without having given a fair solution and definitive ”.
The organizers point out that the solution to the housing crisis for “the performance of public authorities.” Specifically, they ask to integrate the homes of the Sareb, the so -called Banco Malo, in the management of public and social housing. A measure that the President of the Government already advanced in January. Specifically, the public company announced by Sánchez will imminently incorporate 13,000 homes of the entity, in the following months it will absorb another 15,000 and, the period of a year and a half, it is expected to acquire 10,000 more.
In addition, among the requests of the calls are the application of the State Housing Law in relation to the tensioning areas, which President Isabel Díaz Ayuso has insisted that he will not apply, despite the demand of some municipalities, and legal guarantees of that evictions will not occur without housing alternative. The tourist floors, in a city ravaged by Airbnb and illegal temporal rentals, are also in the focus of claim. The demonstration claims the closure of these accommodations and the immediate suspension of the licenses.
“It would have to regularize already, because it is an lack of control by municipalities and communities and affects those who live here and we have middle salaries,” says Valentino, 28, who lives with his partner, Elena, 26, in Madrid. “Right now we can pay a rent, but we could not be able to,” she says. In the list of non -compliance with housing legislation they have suffered in their own economies the collection of the month of agency to lease their home, despite being an illegal commission, which cannot be loaded to the tenants.
The demonstration has not had the unanimous support of housing movements. From other groups, such as the PAH of Vallekas, they have criticized the presence of “government parties and majority unions, responsible for the housing problem”, which “organize and call to demonstrate.” “We do not want to participate in your circus” complaints in a statement in which they ask “to point to all the culprits, without exceptions.”
