Moncloa privately admits public housing is 'impossible'

The Government privately admits it cannot solve housing

The Executive privately admits it will not give public housing the boost Pedro Sánchez promised. Government sources cited by EL MUNDO acknowledge that the lack of social housing is 'a problem impossible to solve in the short and medium term' and that they have looked at and analysed everything. The response is two decrees that Moncloa wants Congress to urgently ratify: an extension of rental contracts, the State acting as lender to families and a VAT cut for construction. None of those measures lays a single brick.

Two decrees that plug the drip, not the leak

The texts respond to Maricarmen's eviction and to the outrage of their own electorate. They serve as temporary social protection, to calm tempers and, if it comes to it, to clear the camp at Puerta del Sol. They are not enough. Not by a long way. The big problem is not demand but a lack of public supply: only a gigantic stock of social housing rented at income-based rates would offer a way out of the real-estate ruin facing Spaniards. Meanwhile, the PSOE clings to the miracle of getting Junts and Podemos to agree, opposed to each other but arithmetically inseparable.

200.000 new families a year versus 95.000 homes built

The arithmetic leaves no room for spin. In Spain, more than 200.000 households are created every year and 95.000 homes are built, so the deficit grows unchecked. Banco de España already speaks of a mismatch of more than 700.000 homes. To push prices down, three times as many would have to be built, and they would have to be affordable and public. On paper, there is a huge majority in Congress for a new land law, more technical staff and a real public housing stock. On paper.

No state pact with the current government

Consensus is a thing of the past. In the PP they reply that there is nothing to negotiate with the current government, and there is no sign that the government intends to offer one. Into that gap slips the proposal that the text attributes to Santiago Abascal: deporting migrants so that Spaniards can access cheaper flats, a mathematically dismissible argument with no supporting data. The state pact that the problem demands, say the sources consulted, is impossible right now.

A shortage of supply or an excess of demand?

This is where the analysis splits. Some argue that it is not supply that is lacking but that demand is excessive, pointing to investment funds, foreign owners and European or U.S. residents as responsible for tightening the market. Against that, the most widespread calculation points to bricks and mortar: without public land being mobilised, prices will not fall. A third line warns that building more runs up against material limits, and recalls that in Valencia land is being sold again in flood-prone areas because there is no more room. Land, electricity and services are not infinite.

With this picture, the published analysis points to a long season of high prices and regulatory patches. If no one mobilises public land on a large scale, every year of waiting adds to the deficit and every decree adds noise. The only reasonable doubt is how long it will take for the pact that everyone says they want and no one seems willing to sign to appear. Voters, meanwhile, are once again called on to deal the cards.