Barcelona suffers from a housing affordability crisis and limited resources in terms of land and capital to develop new public, social and affordable housing. This is why the city is looking at the private housing stock as a source of housing that could be removed from the market and offered at a below-market price. The city has a very low vacancy rate (estimated at below 1.5%), but most vacant dwellings remain so because of limitations on the part of landlords to maintain them. Concurrently, Barcelona is living with an increase of real estate activity and is witnessing the displacement of long-term residents as a result of speculative investment. There is therefore a need to intervene where neighbours are being displaced, to ensure their right to housing and everybody’s right to the city.
Barcelona City Council has launched the Right to Housing Plan 2016–2025, which includes specific measures to curb speculative practices in the private housing market and guarantee the right to housing, especially in the neighbourhoods most affected by gentrification. This policy takes place in the framework of several other housing policies to increase the public housing stock in the city, promote the construction of affordable units by the non- and limited-profit private sector, and put a hold on tenant harassment in the private rental sector.
This set of policies is based on a territorialised diagnosis of residential vulnerability, using data from the census of vacant housing and illegal touristic uses (elaborated through a job placement programme run by the public agency Barcelona Activa). It also relates to a study of vulnerable areas carried out in collaboration with the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and based on the resulting indicators, Barcelona City Council has developed two sets of measures:
- Acquisition of housing units in the private housing market with the aim of curbing the displacement of neighbours and increasing the public housing stock in severely stressed areas where there is no affordable housing stock. This policy is usually accompanied by the rehabilitation of these homes and their subsequent management by the Municipal Institute of Housing and Rehabilitation (IMHAB). Since 2015, the city has acquired 661 housing units, with a public investment of €73 million.
- Mobilisation of private housing for affordable housing through bilateral agreements with private landlords. This policy is divided between the Intermediation Programme (Rental Housing Pool) and the Cession Programme, managed by the non-profit organisation Habitat 3. The Rental Housing Pool is based on bilateral agreements between landlords and the city by which the latter offers incentives in exchange for affordable rentals for a period proportional to the incentives received. The city has launched a specific campaign – ‘You have the key’ – to add housing units to the programme.