The end of the state legislature with the call for early general elections for next November 29th has had an undisputed protagonist: housing. With important social mobilizations that were stimulated by very painful cases, such as that of Maricarmen, and, likewise, by the rejection of the right-wing parties PP, Vox, and Junts, to the approval of decrees that meant applying urgent palliative measures against evictions and the growing housing crisis. Amidst the political bickering, the debate on an essential issue for people's lives made its way.
Faced with the bleeding reality of people who cannot access housing or who, if they do, spend 50% or more of their meager salary on it, becoming a clear factor of impoverishment, institutions have failed. With different responsibilities. The State has the capacity to intervene in the market, curb speculation, incentivize affordable rent, but it is the communities that have to find land, promote public housing, manage empty housing stock; and those of PP-Vox have boycotted it.
Also CC and its Government
Coalición Canaria has also failed to comply with the housing law, which from its Government has done nothing in the community where housing prices are growing the most; and which voted in Congress against the second decree. The Canary Islands Government misdiagnoses by limiting the problem to an administrative matter. The housing crisis requires acting on public supply, affordable rent, and market regulation, not just on urban planning procedures.
Of course, the Canary Islands right-wing parties have favored speculation by modifying the REF to apply the RIC to the construction of rental housing without income limits; or approved a Canary Islands decree-law that favors the construction of housing above 250,000 euros, inaccessible to young people and workers.
On the contrary, they are blocking the declaration of tense areas, as is happening with Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. And they do nothing to limit rental prices, mobilize empty housing, coordinate all public administrations to build protected housing, or significantly increase the public housing stock.
We must act on housing by demanding that it be considered a subjective right in the Constitution. By sustainably increasing the public rental housing stock. By investing a stable percentage of the Canary Islands' GDP in housing annually. By declaring stressed areas where legal requirements are met. By mobilizing empty housing towards residential rental. By guaranteeing long-lasting protection of affordable housing. By coordinating the Government, island councils, city councils, and public companies to build housing.
Far from the unbearable noise that has marked state policy, it is very positive that we are talking about what really affects people's lives. About housing. About working conditions and salaries. About pensions. About healthcare, education, or care policies. About the effects of the Climate Crisis on health and safety. These are some of the issues to be debated in this electoral period, offering viable solutions that strengthen the social state and improve the daily lives of citizens.
Wave of solidarity, general strike
In the end, it had to be a particular case, but not unique, the eviction of an 87-year-old woman, the social support it generated, and her death in a hospital a few days later, that has unleashed an enormous wave of citizen solidarity (and a parallel wave, no less, of insults, fake news, and hatred from a large part of the media and partisan right-wing) and has once again put housing at the forefront of the social and political agenda. Where it should always have been.
A social and political wake-up call with many people demonstrating in the streets, with a large presence of young people, demanding an end to the current and unjust situation and proposing solutions to overcome it. And which continues with the general strike called for November 11 and the mobilizations that will accompany it. These serve to raise awareness and to demand profound transformations from institutions to make the right to housing effective. Changes that seem impossible if PP and Vox govern, as the polls currently suggest.
Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista supports that strike in line with its permanent defense of legislative changes that facilitate access to decent housing under reasonable conditions, combating speculation. Before the current mobilizations, we drafted a Canary Islands Law Bill for the Guarantee of the Right to Protected and Affordable Housing, which we have presented in Parliament. Considering that housing must be an effective right, not a privilege for those who can afford market prices. Convinced, furthermore, that things can and must be changed from self-government, with the Canary Islands having the powers in this matter and the instruments and resources to face it if there is genuine political will and defense of the general interest. Which the CC-PP Government has completely lacked.
Román Rodríguez is the national secretary of Strategies, Programs, and Training of Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-bc).
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