Podemos demands seizure of 650,000 fund-owned homes

Maricarmen’s forced eviction in Madrid has led Podemos to demand the compulsory seizure of 650,000 homes owned by investment funds for social rents. The party’s leader, Ione Belarra, made the call on 24 September, saying the case showed Spain’s housing system needed structural change. She dismissed the housing decree being negotiated by the two coalition partners as “cosmetic measures”.

Belarra told TVE that she had joined the protest against Maricarmen’s eviction and returned with a “broken heart”. She said taking away the home Maricarmen had had for 70 years was “murder”.

She also condemned police action against activists who tried to stop the eviction. Belarra said the deployment recalled those of 2011 under the Partido Popular government, when, she said, evictions were happening “every day”, and described the police violence as “absolutely unjustified”.

Belarra said the housing crisis was creating an “unbearable inequality gap” that could not be fixed by small measures. Podemos had already warned that a draft decree to extend rental contracts included a reform of the Land Law which it regarded as a “red line”.

On Thursday, Sumar wrote to the Socialist side of the government demanding that next Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting consider both the housing decree and the compulsory purchase of Maricarmen’s home.

Topics: Housing · Politics · Economy

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com