From HOGAR SÍ and Provivienda we state that we value very positively the initiative of the State Law for the Right to Housing, which establishes a general and homogeneous framework in the advancement of the guarantee of an adequate home, as well as in the establishment and production of housing policies.
The draft bill on the right to housing includes key issues for generating an affordable housing policy aimed at combating discrimination and inequality, as well as preventing and resolving residential exclusion. However, when we enter into the subject matter of the object and development of the regulation itself, the degree of impact of this inclusive housing policy, as stated in the preamble, is much less specific than expected. By way of example, it is particularly striking that references to homelessness are practically reduced to a relatively vague mention in article 14 of the law.
There is still room for improvement in terms of eradicating homelessness and preventing residential exclusion. Specific measures should be envisaged for these purposes.
As positive points, we highlight the importance given to the Third Sector in the collaboration for the generation of affordable housing and the management of social housing, articulating its role as key both in the monitoring of policies and in the provision of affordable housing, thus integrating the non-profit or limited-profit sector in the provision of solutions and advancing in the European model of Housing Associations.
Likewise, the conceptualization of different types of housing subject to special regimes(social housing / subsidized housing at a limited price / incentivized affordable housing), makes the options for the provision of housing more flexible according to different strategies, which can improve the provision of solutions to residential exclusion. For its part, the establishment of housing policies as a "service of general interest" is fundamental in order to consider them as a key element of economic and social cohesion, advancing the idea of housing as the fifth pillar of the Welfare State.
On the other hand, as points for improvement, this regulation hardly incorporates explicitly comprehensive actions linked to the eradication of homelessness or the prevention of residential exclusion; rather, these issues appear vaguely in the text. In this sense, the links between Social Services and housing should be more specific than what is included in this law, since it limits such coordination to the paralyzation of judicial processes in the case of eviction of people in a situation of special vulnerability.
On the other hand, although the creation of a mechanism for limiting rents in stressed rental markets is an advance that allows for short-term action on affordability problems, generating a sort of temporary "firewall" in the process of expanding the affordable housing stock, the procedure presented is indeterminate, not very transparent and, to a certain extent, bureaucratic: the lack of specificity on these issues may lead to problems of legal uncertainty that affect the implementation of the measure as well as its effectiveness in the short term.
Finally, although we value very positively the incorporation of the Third Sector as a key player in the provision of affordable housing, the mechanisms by which the participation of the non-profit sector in housing policy is encouraged, beyond the 70% IRPF rebate when the tenant is a non-profit entity, have not yet been specified.
