The measure was one of a dozen unveiled on Monday by the country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, as the government seeks to quell mounting anger over housing costs that have soared far beyond the reach of many in Spain.
Sánchez sought to underline the global nature of the challenge, citing housing prices that had swelled 48% in the past decade across Europe, far outpacing household incomes.
“The west faces a decisive challenge: to not become a society divided into two classes, the rich landlords and poor tenants,” he told an economic forum in Madrid.
The proposed measures include expanding the supply of social housing, offering incentives to those who renovate and rent out empty properties at affordable prices and cracking down on seasonal rentals. In Spain just 2.5% of housing is set aside for social housing, a figure that lags drastically behind countries such as France and the Netherlands, said Sánchez.
My wife is on year 4 of the immigration process in the US. She’s still dealing with people misunderstanding how work authorization works with recruiters when applying to roles. She applied ages ago to get the condition removed from her permanent residency. This is even working for years at major companies and making 6 figures. We also bought a home after she started the process.
I know and understand that the US immigration process is not the same as what is in Spain or any other country, but bureaucratic bullshit exists everywhere and you don’t know the gotchas until you go through it yourself.
Saying someone needs to complete a process that can easily take 5+ years in some cases is just not realistic or fair. You shouldn’t be forced to rent, it leaves you ripe to being exploited as an immigrant often by people who are xenophobic and bigoted.
There are ways to change the dynamic of landleeches but screwing immigrants isn’t the solution. Everyone needs a place to live, nobody needs a place to rent out or to leave vacant as an investment. There should also be exceptions for things like commercial properties e.g. things zoned for business use. Shouldn’t be fucking an immigrant over for opening up a gas station or restaurant to make ends meet because the locals are too xenophobic to hire foreigners (a huge issue all over the world.) ___