Housing crisis | Spain: “The strength of the housing movement is its clear agenda”

Thousands demonstrate in downtown Barcelona for the right to housing. They also remember Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old woman who died after being evicted in Madrid. Photo: IMAGO/Miguel Galmés For weeks in Madrid, Barcelona and other cities, hundreds of people have protested against the housing shortage with camps in public squares. The tent cities reminded many of the “15 M”, the Spanish outraged movement of 2011. Are the movements similar in their essence?

The people who have protested in recent weeks are symbolically referring to the “15M”, but they have also learned lessons from it. While back then it was about the social cuts after the financial crisis, the democratic deficits in the system and a different understanding of politics, today the movement is focusing on a specific issue: the housing shortage. And she calls for very concrete solutions to the problem: a Spanish-wide reduction in rents, no-time rental contracts, an end to forced evictions. The left-wing coalition has included some of these demands in its housing decrees.

Jordi Mir, born in 1976, researches social movements at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. The political and social scientist has examined, among other things, the political and social significance of the Spanish “outraged movement” and the housing protests. Other focal points of his work are the history of ideas and political participation processes.

Does more targeted mean less radical?

First of all, it means that it asks less about the system. It is not about finding new forms of politics or social interaction, but rather about forcing politicians to take concrete actions. This does not mean that they have greater trust in the parties. But the movement knows where it can apply leverage: It knows that many of its demands – such as an end to forced evictions in social emergencies – are supported by voters from a wide range of parties. She knows that, especially in large cities, concern for affordable housing cuts across most social classes. The children of upper middle class families who own a condominium also suffer from the high rents. That is his strength.

Proof of this strength is that they managed to persuade the two major unions, UGT and Comisiones Obreras, to go on general strike.

The movement has already proven its strength. Here in Catalonia, for example, through the rent strikes in the Caixa Bank apartment blocks, which, thanks to social pressure, were then bought by the regional government and converted into social housing. She has earned the necessary social support for this over many years. Initiatives such as the PAH platform for those affected by mortgages and now the Sindicatos de Inquilinas, the tenants' unions, are firmly anchored in the neighborhoods and know how to bring their concerns to the media, to the public, and how to mobilize: This was last seen in Madrid, after the eviction of Maricarmen, the pensioner who has since died.

After the initial failure of its housing decrees in parliament, the left-wing coalition brought forward the elections - also in the hope of mobilizing its own clientele with this issue. Will the issue of housing be a deciding factor in the election?

The housing movement is very aware that it has driven the government to the decrees - through the large demonstrations and protest camps over the Maricarmen case. These protests are also directed against the government. The left-wing coalition, especially the Social Democratic Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, has shown above all political instinct and is now trying to put them at the spearhead of this movement. It remains to be seen whether the calculation will work.

This is likely to be difficult, especially now, after the serious train accident in Urda with 69 deaths.

But the people who protested in the camps or because of the general strike are not nearly as critical of the party as the “outraged” people were back then. Mobilization will be a very important factor. Many young people have mobilized in the last few weeks and months. That could be crucial. Normally, the conservatives win in Spain not because they gain supporters, but because the left's potential voters stay at home.

In Berlin, the Left won the state elections with, among other things, the plan to expropriate large homeowners and real estate funds. Is this also a strategy for the Spanish left-wing parties?

Podemos and some parties close to the Sumar alliance have already proposed similar measures. The ban on purchasing living space for speculative purposes is much more sophisticated. A decree already prohibits funds from purchasing housing for less than 70 percent of its value. But the thrust is the same. Berlin and New York have shown that with courageous and concrete political proposals you can actually convince voters and counteract the global shift to the right.

In 2011, it was the left-wing party Podemos that proclaimed itself the heir to the outraged movement. Could the current housing movement also lead to the founding of a party or an electoral list?

It's still too early for that. In Serbia, too, it took two years for the student movement to draw up its own electoral list and be successful. So far it seems to me that massive pressure is being put on individual parties to find solutions to the housing crisis.

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