Do you have a problem with a camp? Well, you set up another one, and that way you have two, successfully distracting everyone—a perfect diversion tactic. Until yesterday, Spain was focused on one camp: the one Moroccans set up on the beaches of Ceuta, a camp that embarrasses the government, which admitted to having suffered an “invasion.”
Since yesterday, however, another camp has been dominating Spanish news. Dozens of people have set up camp in central Madrid, at Puerta del Sol, to demand an urgent solution to the housing problem from the government. According to the government, this issue has worsened over its eight years in power due to the right wing’s refusal to apply its Housing Law—passed three years ago—which prevents rent increases in so-called “stressed areas.” This measure, combined with the ban on evicting so-called vulnerable tenants, has reduced the supply of rental apartments across Spain, exacerbating the problem and leading landlords to demand exorbitant prices and conditions from prospective tenants.
None of that seems to matter, just as it doesn’t matter that during the 2023 election campaign Pedro Sánchez promised to build 183,000 public housing units that have never been heard of since. All of that matters very little. After eight years of progressive governments and constant, unfortunate intervention in the housing market, it is the property owners and vulture funds speculating on other people’s pain who are responsible for making it impossible to buy or rent an apartment in Spain—not the government. And the outrage is palpable. But Sánchez is convinced that this outrage isn’t directed at him and his government, but rather at bad property owners who refuse to rent out their apartments at affordable prices. So yesterday, in another surreal episode, Vice President Yolanda Díaz called on people to mobilize: “And if we have to mobilize against the Government of Spain, let’s mobilize,” she said.
The trigger for the protest was the eviction of an 87-year-old woman from a home where her family had lived since before 1964, under a so-called old-rent agreement. Franco froze rents and prevented them from rising beyond the CPI; as a result, 20 years after that law, in 1985, Felipe González’s socialist government decided to liberalize rentals because the rental market in Spain was virtually non-existent. Owners were not putting their apartments up for rent and were letting buildings deteriorate without making the necessary maintenance investments. That 1985 law allowed the tenant—and even a second beneficiary who could subrogate the original contract—to continue enjoying the old rent rate. However, upon the death of that second beneficiary, the property was released. That is what led the judge, surely with a heavy heart, to order the eviction of the now-famous Maricarmen.
