TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Tens of thousands of demonstrators thronged the streets of Madrid, Barcelona, and over 40 other cities across Spain on Saturday, protesting against soaring rents and an increasingly deep housing crisis. As reported by Arab News and Anadolu, this crisis has plagued the country for over a decade.
The action is the first large-scale coordinated national demonstration organized by various tenants' associations.
The government said 15,000 people marched in Madrid, while the organizers claimed ten times that number took to the streets of the capital.
In Barcelona, city hall said 12,000 people participated in the protest, while the organizers claimed over 100,000 people.
These widespread demonstrations of social discontent have become a major concern for Spain's leftist government, organized by housing activists and supported by Spain's main labor unions.
The protesters carried banners reading "End the housing business" and "Cut rent by 50 percent," criticizing the property market deemed unsustainable and rife with speculation.
Renters' groups also threatened to go on a rent strike if their demands are not met.
Valeria Racu, spokesperson for the Tenants' Association of Madrid, called for unlimited action and a national strike against high rent and property speculators. She urged 500,000 households whose leases expire by 2025 to stand up against eviction.
Racu reaffirmed their commitment to the rent strike plan and stated that millions of people have shown their strength. She estimated that if this action goes ahead, rent prices could drop by at least 30 percent.
She also emphasized that both speculators and the government must be held accountable for the housing crisis that has displaced families and young generations from city centers to suburban areas.
Meanwhile, Mariola Gutierrez, spokesperson for the Tenants' Association in Logrono, stated that the movement aims to lower housing prices and stop the growing "rental bubble" by pressing speculators and the government to take real action.
According to the Bank of Spain report, the country needs about 500,000 new homes to address the housing crisis.
To enable the government to build social housing, the report recommended land law reforms, bureaucratic simplification, a reduction in the current 25 percent property tax burden, and a cessation of short-term rentals to tourists in major cities and coastal areas.
Despite the ruling leftist coalition government taking some steps to address this crisis, the efforts are considered insufficient.
One of the policies recently halted is the "golden visa" program, which granted permanent residency to foreign investors purchasing properties worth at least 500,000 euros. The program was stopped on April 3, after benefiting about 15,000 foreign investors since 2013.
Rental prices in Spain have now hit record highs. Over the past year, rental rates have risen by 11.5 percent and by 3.9 percent quarterly.
The average rental price per square meter has now reached 13.5 euros. In Madrid, rent prices have surged by 91 percent in the last decade, while the cost of new house construction has increased by an average of 7.6 percent.
Amid the urbanization trend from small towns to big cities, young people in Spain are increasingly moving to suburban areas due to the high cost of rent and housing in city centers.
Youth say they must live with their parents or spend a lot of money just to share an apartment, with little chance of saving enough to one day buy a house. High housing costs mean that even those with traditionally high-paying jobs struggle to make ends meet.
"I live with four people and still, I allocate 30 or 40 percent of my salary for rent," said 26-year-old lawyer Mari Sanchez in Madrid. "It doesn't allow me to save. It doesn't allow me to do anything. It doesn't even allow me to buy a car. That's my current situation, and that's what many young people experience."
Spanish Housing Minister Isabel Rodrguez told X that "I share the demands of many people who protested today: that a home is for living, not for speculation."
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