The outcome of the conflict around the Orsola house with the mayor of Barcelona rectifying its initial position and, at the outset, constitutes positive news.
And also of the set of mobilizations in favor of the right to housing that have intensified in recent months, with obvious milestones in the great demonstration of last November in the city of Barcelona the most crowded and also diverse of recent times and in the Concentration precisely in front of the Orsola house at the end of January, which clearly precipitated the change in attitude of those who now hold government positions in the Barcelona town hall, which at first rejected the option of direct purchase.
However, no one can think that it is an end point, since the problem of access to housing in Barcelona is very serious – as a minimum since the 2008 crisis in all its neighborhoods. Undoubtedly, choosing a building of a mesocratic and handsome neighborhood like Eixample to capture the attention of public opinion has been a success, but you have to continue, putting the focus on the whole of the real city, which also includes the entire area Metropolitan.
All experts in the field have explained it: the policies that have been followed in the past decades a rather stunic endowment for public housing, also alienated in a short time to the private market, with the result of losing it forever, together with a development Economic focused on real estate speculation makes it completely unavoidable to continue raising how it has been done in Barcelona in the last eight years recipes that are brave. There may be and is surely healthy that there is, a reasonable debate on the concretion of the policies that put the right to housing to the center. However, and beyond the formulas that are finally applied – any of the actions that are finally undertaken must take into account three key issues. The first is the time: you have to move quickly, and therefore it is impossible to trust everything to the construction of new housing, but you have to operate in the park, also private, already existing. The second -, the intervention must be clearly raised in the city and in the metropolitan area: because access problems invade the whole and because no policy that makes spatial segregation even more accused. And the third is that we will not leave this with recipes that transfer public resources to private hands, in any way. It is not just a topic of principle – housing is a right, enshrined in the same Constitution – but of effectiveness: it will not be possible to tackle the problem without a part of private resources not being put at the service of the community. Take note.
