The housing problem is a structural problem that comes from far away. What should be a human right is nothing more than a subjective right. I say that it is a fraud because, although all the institutions and all the political parties say nice words, they do not grasp the essence. Nowadays, construction companies and landowners establish housing policies based on the right they have to do business. All institutions defend this right enthusiastically, before anyone can access a housing, which is objective and subjective. That is why I want to clarify some lies that come to us from those responsible for the situation.

It is not true that more housing needs to be built to meet the needs of citizens. Although thousands of homes have been built in recent years, the problem has not been solved. Moreover, politicians, as in an auction, are struggling for more housing, without knowing the real need in the people. The municipalities do not know the number and characteristics of the people who have the objective need of housing, something that can be discussed widely, as they do not do any standards.

It is not true that the construction of more Official Housing Protection solves the problem. It has been more than twenty years since that road began, and today we are the same, or worse, because many of those homes have been released. In addition, the number of these dwellings is established almost always by the builders close to what is established by law and the municipalities generally do not dare to ask them to build the majority. And the most serious thing is that people who really need housing often don't get to the minimum wage required and run out of choice.

It is not true that the construction of more free housing solves the problem. In fact, those who need it most can't afford the over-the-counter selling price. These homes are usually bought by speculators or by people with housing at such a high price that they have to sell as expensive as possible, and the housing market is becoming more expensive. On the other hand, it is not possible to control who buys a home and for what purpose.

It is not true that housing legislation, the previous and the current, will solve the problem. Although the Land Law of 1998 requires municipalities to assume a quantity of money from the budgets of the construction of social housing, in most cases municipalities have renounced the law and now we do not know which municipalities have complied with the law and how many homes have built with that money. On the other hand, since the adoption of the last law, housing rental has continued to increase despite the fact that party politicians have filled their breast with the benefits of the law.

Laws and institutions always protect the rights of owners and builders. At best, some people can alleviate the problem, but the real need and right is ruled out, for the benefit of speculators. Of course, all the institutions take their share out of speculation. In this way the housing problem will not be solved.

The real problem of housing is not the lack of housing, but the transformation of housing into a product to do business and not to live and have rights. Today, this capitalist system defends the right of construction companies and landowners to speculate with the housing and the right of a tourist to enjoy a home for several days, ahead of the right of people to live in a home. There's the spinal cord, and it's not grabbed either by the right or by the left. All they do is put patches, for example, sell land to the construction companies at a low price, bypass a home or give money to the homeowners to rent it cheaply. But that, instead of closing the door to speculation, aggravates the problem, because it defends speculative interests, to the detriment of those most in need.

However, in order to solve the problem in a real way, there are measures that, if they are courageous, can be taken to address the issue of housing properly.

First of all, if the function of housing is to provide people with an adequate place to live and people have the right to have a home, the ideal would be to invoke a social heritage to protect their function, which should imply the prohibition of buying a home to the person, to the association or to the vulture funds that do not have an objective to live there, as has recently been recognized in the Netherlands, clearly indicating that it is not possible to buy a home there.

Another measure would be the creation of a Housing Board or something similar by the municipalities to know the real need that exists in the municipalities. Among the functions of this Board of Trustees is to create a census of the inhabitants of the locality who present the objective need for housing. It would explain the general situation of the applicant and the housing he/she would need. In this way, we would know the real need that exists in our country. In addition, knowing all the cases, we would know if more housing should be built and what kind of housing to build.

At the same time, this board could carry out the management of vacant housing in the municipality. It may also manage the necessary subsidy for the rehabilitation of housing. If much more money were invested in this field, instead of building new homes, leaving the old ones in good condition would avoid filling the natural areas around us with cement.

On the other hand, we have heard on many occasions that in order to carry out such a gigantic work (railways, roads, museums...), citizenship and peoples... expropriate their lands in the name of the general interest. This is what can be done here as well. If housing is considered a necessity and a real right, why not expropriate empty houses or speculative homes and put them for social rent?

Other measures similar to those already mentioned would lead institutions to control housing policy and to act correctly on the subject, and to close the door to speculation, since housing cannot be a business product as it has been up to now.

Santi Angulo Martín