Housing, a Problem Perpetuated Over Time in Spain. New Initiatives to Promote Access to Affordable Housing in Madrid

Abstract

Ensuring access to affordable housing with quality standards is becoming one of the main urban policies on a global scale. In Spain, housing is a chronic problem that has been accentuated as a result of the real estate, health and environmental crisis that we have been suffering for the last twelve years. For four decades, housing policies were based on neoliberal private development, reducing investment in the development of public housing to historic lows. The fact that there are eleven million people in a situation of housing emergency has made it urgent to design new strategies that favour access to quality housing. Throughout this chapter we will approach the recommendations that are being issued from Europe in terms of housing policies, and then contextualise the problem in Spain and analyse the initiatives that are being carried out in its capital to mitigate residential vulnerability based on semi-structured interviews conducted with policy makers, municipal housing companies and non-profit organisations.