Pedro Sánchez, not a single home in 5 years, more than 90,000 in two days
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced this Wednesday that the Government is going to finance the development of 43,000 new homes for rent at affordable prices, whether newly built or refurbished, which will be added to the 50,000 in Sareb. In almost five years that he has been in Moncloa, not a single rental home has been built, and in just two days he has announced more than 90,000 to the disbelief of the sector.
During his appearance in the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies to report on EU affairs, Sánchez has detailed that these new homes will be financed through a new ICO line of 4,000 million euros from European funds.
These homes will have to meet two conditions, Sánchez said: energy efficiency and that they are intended for affordable rentals or for a period of at least 50 years.
Sánchez acknowledged that housing is “a big problem” in Spain because it has been treated “as a commodity, increasingly exclusive and minority“, instead of as a right.
Faced with this, “we are going to turn housing into the fifth pillar of the welfare state“, he stressed, which means approaching the 20% of housing destined for public rental at affordable prices of some European countries.
Strong criticism from the PP
The PP spokeswoman in Congress, Cuca Gamarra, has branded the announcement of 43,000 new homes for affordable rental as a “bluff” because in five years of government Pedro Sánchez has done “zero” and his “credibility is zero“.
“We are facing a reheated dish that the Spaniards will not see either,” said Gamarra in response to the head of the Executive, who this Wednesday appears before the Congress of Deputies.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party accuses the leader of the PSOE of changing the housing policy of Miguel Boyer for that of Arnaldo Otegi, moving from social democracy to the “populist radicalism” of EH-Bildu, ERC and Podemos and of “shielding squatters“.
Of the 100,000 homes he promised to mobilise in October, “nobody has seen a single flat, excavator or key” and the announcement of the 50,000 Sareb properties “has not even lasted 48 hours”, denounced Gamarra, who reproaches the “phantom announcements in the middle of the election campaign”.
Faced with Sánchez’s commitment to make housing the “fifth pillar” of the welfare state, the PP has told him that arrogance is his first pillar, lies the second, and inefficiency the third.
According to Gamarra, it will be Feijóo who will solve the housing problem with the promise of guarantees for the purchase and rental of housing for young people, aid for emancipation or the commitment to evict squatters within 24 hours.
The number three of the PP has also reminded Sánchez that he approved cuts and made neoliberal policies in 2010 and warned him that the “real” Spain, not the one of “propaganda” and manipulation, has less purchasing power than in 1996, pays more for food and mortgage and lives “worse“.