00:00In Spain, for many young people, the only way to live without fear of renting is if a family member
00:05He dies and leaves them his house. That's what they say from the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, where since the end
00:10Hundreds of people camp out every weekend to protest the housing crisis.
00:15There are more than 350 stores set up. There are young people who work and still live at their parents' house.
00:21Adults sharing flats past 40 and families fearing the next rent increase.
00:26And the evictions have everyone scared. Everyone is waiting for the same thing: that on Tuesday the 29th
00:32In September, the government will approve a decree against evictions. It already has a name.
00:37The decree is named after Mari Carmen, the octogenarian woman whose case shook the country. Mari Carmen is 87 years old.
00:44She used a wheelchair and had lived in the same apartment in the Retiro neighborhood since 1956. She paid her monthly rent.
00:51The rent was around 500 euros. Even so, they evicted her from her home last Wednesday.
00:55How is that possible? Their contract was one of those so-called old rent contracts, signed before 1985. They were renewed
01:02They remained unoccupied as long as the tenant wanted, and the price barely increased. In 1994, a law began to dismantle them.
01:09Whoever inherited one second in line, like Mari Carmen from her mother, could only keep it twice.
01:14years, unless they had a disability of 65% or more. Mari Carmen has a 50% disability.
01:22In 2018, the company Urbagestión bought the apartment and asked her for 2,650 euros a month. She
01:29Living on a pension of 1,300 euros, it would be impossible for her to pay it. After six years of legal battles,
01:35The courts, including the Supreme Court, ruled in favor of the company. The Ministry of Housing and the
01:41Pianist James Rhodes offered to buy the apartment. An anonymous writer offered to pay the difference.
01:47for life, but the company rejected all offers. The law worked as written.
01:52And that's the problem. This current law lacks an individualized proportionality analysis.
01:57to look at age and income, or whether the tenant even had anywhere to go. That's why even a rapporteur
02:03The UN said the judge should have stopped the eviction, but it went ahead anyway. Now, the union
02:09The tenants who organized the encampment demand that the new decree include rental contracts.
02:14indefinite. But that requirement is, in essence, what Mari Carmen had. And it's not enough.
02:19to resolve the crisis. For sociologist Jorge Galindo, that is precisely where the mistake lies.
02:24According to him, these types of measures protect those who already own a home, but discourage prospective homeowners.
02:29They're putting new apartments up for rent. And with fewer apartments available, they're keeping the ones that are there.
02:35Those who can afford the most. Galindo proposes another path. First, build much more housing.
02:40Public social rental housing. Spain has about 320,000 when there are 880,000 households that
02:46They receive the minimum living income. Second, that the State buys homes in the most vulnerable cases.
02:51urgent and leave them to whoever already lives there, just as was attempted with Mari Carmen.
02:56Third, a public rental insurance, like the one in France, so that neither tenant nor landlord
03:01bear the risk of non-payment alone. Fourth, high taxes on tourist rentals and on
03:07Houses that remain empty almost all year round. And, above all, to unblock construction.
03:12An industry facing many barriers. On Tuesday we'll begin to see which path to take.
03:18The government is leaving. Meanwhile, Mari Carmen remains hospitalized. When she's released, she'll probably...
03:23He will go to live with his cousin in Segovia, 91 kilometers from the neighborhood where he spent his whole life.
