The President of the Government of Spain proposes to the autonomous communities tripling funding and guaranteeing public housing for life

Logo of the XXVIII Conference of Presidents

The President of the Government of Spain has sent a letter to all the regional presidents inviting them to use the forthcoming Conference of Presidents in Barcelona to discuss the approval of a new State Housing Agreement, which should be based on three reciprocal commitments.

Firstly, more funding. The President of the Government of Spain proposes tripling public investment in housing, from the €2.3 billion mobilised in the 2022-2025 State Plan to around €7 billion for the 2026-2030 period.

The Government of Spain commits itself in the new plan to provide the bulk of this sum (€4 billion), provided that the communities assume joint responsibility and contribute at least €2.7 billion.

The head of the Executive recalls that housing policy is a shared competence and that the communities "have never received as many resources from the State as now" (47% more between 2019 and 2025 than between 2012 and 2018), which is why, he argues, "it is essential that part of these resources are used to build and renovate more public housing, for both ownership and rental".

Secondly, the president proposes indefinitely protecting the status of publicly protected housing. In the last 45 years, public administrations built more than 2.4 million social housing units in Spain, but almost all of them ended up losing their social housing status and being sold on the free market at high prices or in the hands of vulture funds.

The government proposes that the regional presidents commit to ensuring that all "housing financed with public money permanently maintains its status as social housing and, therefore, always offers an affordable ownership or rental alternative for citizens".

Finally, Pedro Sánchez proposes ending the monopoly on information held by private portals and creating a public database that would allow state administrations and citizens to know the real sale and rental prices in their city. "Only with such transparency will it be possible to design truly effective public policies and help citizens to negotiate the price of their homes properly," he argues.

The President of the Government of Spain concludes his letter by encouraging the regional presidents to study his proposals for "more public financing, less speculation and more transparency" in order to be able to debate them "in a calm and constructive way this Friday" and "reach an agreement before the summer". As he stresses, "Spaniards do not elect us to bury our heads in the sand or take partisan noise to the institutions. They elect us to discuss, agree and solve their problems. Housing is crucial and we have to be up to the task.

Non official translation