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"The aid announced by the regional government is useless, if there is no available housing at an affordable price to rent"

"The European Investment Bank has financed 53 municipal housing schemes in Spain in the last year, but in order to access these financing, we must have an 'accredited' demand for housing, and for this the study that we demand and that we are going to raise in the Plenary next Thursday through a motion "

NOW MURCIA demands that the City Council carry out the necessary study to access European and state funding for housing, "with which the housing plan that is so necessary could be implemented in our municipality".

Councilman Miguel Angel Alzamora notes that "the absence in the municipality of a comprehensive diagnosis of housing and land leads to the Consistory can not access the aid that is being granted for the implementation of proposed measures in many municipal housing plans; In other words, the Ballesta government has not given or is taking the necessary steps, even the initial ones, to address the serious housing problem in the municipality, and we remember that we are the seventh municipality in Spain by population and the only one in those seven that have not developed a municipal housing plan. "

Alzamora explains that "the European Investment Bank has financed 53 municipal housing plans in Spain in the last year, such as the Barcelona City Council with 125 million euros to promote social housing, and has financed 40 million euros to Navarre. to contribute to the construction of 524 social housing units, which will also facilitate more than 700 jobs around its construction ".

In turn, the Government of Pedro Sanchez announced that it will allocate 22,000 million for social housing.

"However," he stresses, "in order to access these funds, we must have a demand for 'accredited', recognized housing, and for that the study that we demand is necessary and which we are going to raise at the Plenary next Thursday through a motion" .

The councilor points out that "budgets are sometimes advertised for housing studies that are very scarce, but what is worse, they are studies that never see the light, never come to fruition." After several years we still do not know anything about the detailed census on the municipal housing park, and that we are talking about homes that are owned by the City of Murcia, as we do not know anything about how many of the empty homes of the municipality belong to large holders of housing.

The study that Murcia now demands and that should serve to obtain the necessary financing for a municipal housing plan, raises questions such as: analyzing the needs of the population around access and maintenance of housing;

residential supply and demand;

the municipal housing stock;

the substandard housing;

the incidence of urban planning in the residential sector;

the characteristics of the empty dwelling of the municipality owned by the large holders;

available municipal land; and public and private resources related to housing policy, including regional, state and European public funding lines.

"Murcia City Council has to change its culture to consider municipal policy as something residual, and listen to the European Union Parliament, which has been saying for years that addressing the problem of social housing is an investment that has a favorable impact on the economy and well-being of the cities, "says Alzamora.

The mayor of Now Murcia points out some of the data from recent years that describe the social situation around the problem of access to housing that affects the municipality: "30.7% of the population of the municipality is at risk of poverty or exclusion Social and 11.4% have had delays in payments related to housing (EAPN, University of Murcia and IMAS 2018), in the Region of Murcia the evictions for rent have increased in the second quarter of the year 35.8% and 31.6% the evictions for execution (CGPJ, 2018), more than 600 homeless people in the city of Murcia (2016 Exclusion Observatory), plus 200 extreme and chronic under-housing systems in Murcia, especially families with minors (Habitus, 2015), an increase of 23% in rental prices last 5 years (Apimur and COAPI, Dec 2017), almost 30,000 empty homes in the municipality of Murcia (SitMurcia, 2017), and an annual average of around 1,200 municipal social housing applicants (Service Murc Town Hall

ia) ".

Miguel Ángel Alzamora affirms that "from Now Murcia we will continue insisting so that finally a municipal housing policy is carried out, in spite of the continuous obstacles of the PP in this area." This week we have seen how the Constitutional Court has knocked down the complaint filed by the Popular Party to the latest reform of the Regional Housing Law, approved by the opposition in the assembly based on the demands of the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages, on the other hand, the aid announced by the regional government, if there is no available housing at an affordable price to rent ".

Finally, Alzamora points out that "while housing policy is playing a leading role in European, state and regional political spaces, our City Council can not continue to turn its back".

Source: Ahora Murcia