Last Wednesday, the Spanish Government passed a law decree repealing evictions during the state of alarm, which lasted until 9 May. The Law Decree establishes that in this period the Autonomous Communities of the Spanish State shall submit to the Ministry of Social Rights a monthly report detailing the evictions that have been canceled.

The purpose of the reports is to publicize the social measures taken by the administrations in the face of these evictions that have run out of effect, “to know and evaluate the measures proposed by the social services to care for people in vulnerable situations”. Where appropriate, once the information is submitted by the courts, the social services shall have 10 days to analyse the situation of tenants and tenants and to provide for the measures to be taken. The autonomies will have to transfer information on these assumptions to the Spanish government.

The Law Decree, at short distance

After the approval of the Decree Law, the Union of LLogateres of Catalonia underlined that the achievement is the result of the struggle that the housing movement has maintained for months. However, STOP Desahucios Donostia has denounced that the law “is not enough” for several reasons: it does not clearly define who the people are in vulnerable situations, it does not provide for measures to avoid a judicial procedure that is usually initiated due to the lack of capacity to pay and because it is temporary.

Apart from all this, they also denounce the following: “As long as tenants are asked for a thousand tests on their situation, big owners are not required to claim compensation to guarantee their speculative income with public money.” The reason for this is that the associations of large owners have pressured the Government, as the same sources have explained.

“The decree is a step forward, but we have to keep fighting until housing is a guaranteed right and not a business,” they said.