Juan Carlos Suárez-Quiñones (León, 63 years old) has held the position of Minister of Environment, Housing and Territorial Planning of Castilla y León since 2015, a community that has focused on preventing the exodus of young people through . Even so, the popular Suárez-Quiñones, who was senior judge of León between 2002 and 2012 and Government delegate in Castilla y León in 2015, refuses to declare stressed areas and limit income. “I think that the rental aid policy that we implement is very encouraging,” says the counselor, who currently resides in a home owned by his wife in the Leonese capital, in this interview conducted during a visit to Madrid.
Ask. With what specific measures are you combating the housing crisis in Castilla y León?
Answer. I believe that we have a very complete housing policy because it attacks different fronts, in terms of purchasing and renting, because each person has their personal circumstances.
Regarding rental aid, we are the only non-regional community that gives aid to young people and non-young people. We are talking about paying 50% of the rent, but if it is for young people the payment is 60% and if it is in rural areas up to 75% of the rent. That is, to a young family that rents a home in a municipality of 5,000 inhabitants in Castilla y León for which they pay 400 euros in rent, we give them 300 euros. It is not for any rental, that is, we seek to help the people who need it most, with certain levels of income and price set by the Junta de Castilla y León. It is an absolutely social measure.
When I arrived in the community in 2015, 2.9 million were dedicated to these subsidies. This year 40.6 million grants have been delivered. It is an important effort for a non-regional community, with the financing difficulties that communities like mine have, such as Castilla-La Mancha or Aragón, which have a lot of territory and less population.
P. Are young people a priority for your Government?
R. Our entire policy is with preference for young people under 36 years of age. We have an undoubted commitment to prevent our youth from leaving. We make public housing to rent with preference to young people. We are now in a program to make more than a thousand affordable rental homes on a cohousing in rural areas and also in the capitals.
And we have another thousand that we are also building and rehabilitating. With the Rehabitare program we reached agreements with the town councils to rehabilitate the doctor’s house, the pharmacist’s house, the old schools, Civil Guard barracks, the rectory houses of the priests and priests… And we give them for social rent with preference to young people under 36 years old. We want to reach 750 houses this term. We have also rehabilitated the old homes of the public works road workers. There have been 137 homes.
P. Do you have data on how many young people decide to leave the region due to lack of housing?
R. It’s difficult. We try to say: here you have a job opportunity and a housing opportunity. Housing is an essential resource for a young person and they often make decisions about where to live based on whether or not they have affordable housing. Therefore, we believe that it is an element of competitiveness to attract young people and so that they do not leave.
The construction of housing is already planned in industrial areas in rural Castilla y León, where companies have real difficulty finding workers because they have nowhere to live. With agreements with business groups we are going to build public housing that we are going to rent out. We are talking about areas such as Ribera de Duero or Aguilar de Campoo, where we seek to settle the population. We have an initial package of about 500 homes that will be expanded.
P. Do you in any way encourage these young people to also buy a house?
R. Buying a home is more rooted than renting, especially in rural areas. In terms of purchase, we are building public housing to sell to young people, discounting 20% of the price. And then we give guarantees when they want to buy a market home. We guarantee up to 17.5% of the mortgage. That is certainly encouraging someone to make the decision to start a life project by buying a home, not public, on the market, but it completes the circle of support. We have already given 900 guarantees of this type since it was launched last year and it is working very well.
P. Will these public housing be permanent?
R. They will be flexible sales so that they have freedom with the home. It will not be subject to a specific period of ownership. We believe that young people who buy a home do not buy it to speculate, they buy it to live, it is an important effort. What we have done is add the nine provincial councils of the community because this way we achieve more objectives. We are going to build a thousand homes of this type.
P. Is the lack of land ready to build a problem in the community?
R. In Castilla y León it is not because of a lack of private land that it is not built. There are polygons, there is expansion capacity and we do not detect that the soil is a problem.
P. Are they going to declare tension zones to limit the rental price?
R. We are not going to declare tense areas in Castilla y León. The Minister of Housing talks about consensus, but then it does not translate into facts. We already warned that the housing law invaded regional powers, that it was logical that they should count on us, they did what they thought was appropriate.
In the housing law there are some aspects that are positive and there are many that are negative. We do not believe in limiting prices. The rental market and owners are very sensitive to insecurity and, of course, they do not like the price limitation and it prevents them from renting their homes. They prefer to build a home for tourist use and look for other alternatives. Therefore, we do not believe that this will solve anything.
This intervention system is a system that does not work in the housing market because it has been proven that it has not worked historically since the last century.
P. What is the alternative you propose?
R. I believe that the rental aid policy that we implement is a very encouraging rental policy. First, because the tenant has to prove the bank payment of the rent. We provide security, we give confidence to the rental market because we are talking about more than 18,000 families that have received this aid in 2024.
In addition, we have launched a new line of action consisting of ensuring the owner the collection of rent and even the support of the Board for the repair of homes after the end of a lease in exchange for an affordable price.
Finally, the rental market is guaranteed by not doing what the housing law has done, which is making it difficult for the owner when the tenant first stays regularly and then becomes irregular. In Castilla y León we do not have a major occupancy problem, but what we do not want is to have one.
P. He says he misses consensus. What do you ask the Government?
R. This, sit down. Sit down when you draft a law, sit down when you are going to implement the young rental bonus. We have complete and wonderful rental assistance. If President Pedro Sánchez wants to wear the banner of support for youth and develop a youth bond, let him sit down and we will coordinate it. And in any case, provide enough money. The youth bonus in Castilla y León has left three out of every four young people out due to lack of financing. Why don’t we provide unique aid and give an image of unity, coordination and introduce complex messages for citizens? This lack of image of unity is not ours, it is the Government of Spain that acts unilaterally, without counting on us and, sometimes, without even announcing it.
P. So, thinking about a State pact for housing seems difficult.
R. It would be totally desirable. Housing is at the top of social concern. We cannot transmit to the citizen the desire to seek electoral and political advantages, but rather efficiency.
P. Do you think the housing crisis has a solution?
R. It is complex and we have to accelerate the pace. We are making an enormous effort, but I believe that we will fail in Spain if the Government and the autonomous communities do not sit at a table. I don’t think we can continue walking apart. We are making an enormous effort, but the sum of our efforts produces better results.
