until now, on this blog, i’ve mostly written about fairly broad reflections. today i want to talk about something more personal, something that hits close to home and that generates, at the very least, worry. it’s a well-worn topic, but it never hurts to insist on it: access to housing in this country.
week after week, new data comes out, new statistical reports, and they all say the same thing: it gets harder and harder for young people to move out. the average age of leaving home keeps going up, the window for accessing housing keeps drifting away, and the horizon becomes more complicated year after year.
the specific figure i saw last week: 80% of people under thirty in this country live with their parents or have not been able to get access to housing. 80%. four out of every five. astronomical figures, and they hit hard. the data don’t lie, they reflect a real situation very well: access to housing is prohibitive. it has been for some time, but it’s only getting worse, and it seems we are incapable of taking measures, of finding a way to ease a social, structural and very serious problem.
and now i’m going to speak from my own situation. i’m a young person — less and less so, but still inside that group of under-thirties. i have a university education. i have a stable job, a good job, i can’t complain, with a good salary. i’ve had the luck of stringing together permanent contracts from the start. i generally do things well, and i’ve done them well since my first paychecks — beyond the fact that, at the beginning, obviously, you spend more. i’m a fairly simple person, without too many excesses. and even so, the reality is that today i cannot afford housing.
yesterday i was watching videos of the latest demonstration in madrid on this very subject. people came on commenting on how the gathering was going, and it’s hard to say it, but almost all the comments that appeared went in the same direction: “yes, lots of protesting about not having a house, but they all have an iphone”. they all go on holiday. they all eat out. they all go out partying. and when you see that repetition, that insistence, you end up asking yourself: am i doing things wrong? is that why i can’t get access to housing? does a right like having a decent roof really come with a penance, a prior sacrifice?
at what point does spending a thousand euros on a phone mean you don’t deserve a decent home near your work, in the place where you were born?
it’s very easy to make that kind of comment from behind the internet, but a lot of people genuinely think this way. it shouldn’t clash with my philosophy of life, but in lower moments it does. because yes, i’ve been on holiday. yes, i have a phone that isn’t exactly the cheapest. and are those two things really the reasons why a person who finished university, who got to work, who has had permanent contracts from the very beginning, who pushes to improve and to be valued, who outside work has projects and hobbies that fulfil them, cannot today access a decent home?
i don’t drink, i don’t smoke, i don’t take drugs. i don’t like going out partying. i buy the clothes i more or less need. the biggest excess i have is that i like to eat varied and balanced, and that i do my shopping at the market in my neighbourhood instead of at the big supermarket. and it isn’t even more expensive: if i need to buy something at the poulterer’s or the butcher’s, i go to the market, to build neighbourhood and give a bit of support to local businesses. it’s something that, socially and ethically, i like to do, and it doesn’t make that big a difference. but you reach a point where you start questioning even that.
and it leaves a bad taste. it leaves a bad taste because the doubt that lingers all the time is “i’m not doing enough”. that i’m genuinely not doing enough to deserve, to have a right to, a home. and you start making absurd calculations: maybe this year i shouldn’t go on holiday, because those two thousand euros would come in really handy for getting a house. but the thing is, getting a house should be the bare minimum. one thing is reasonable effort — having a job, not wasting money — and quite another is that living your life falls inside the category of sacrifices.
i’m aware of my privilege, i don’t want to play it down: i have a good job, stable, i make it to the end of the month and cover my expenses without trouble. there are an awful lot of people in a far worse situation than mine, and they have got by as best they could; some with a flat they own, some renting, each finding their way. but precisely because of that, the question becomes more absurd: if i, starting from this luck, also can’t make it, is the narrative really that the problem is people who don’t try hard enough?
because i’m not asking for that much. nobody is asking for that much when they want a decent home in the town they can choose. of course i could buy something in vilafranca del penedès, in valls, in tarragona. that’s something i more or less could access. but i work in barcelona, my family is from barcelona, my friends are from barcelona, my life is in barcelona. what sense does it make to dissolve ties — family, friendship, romantic — that have been born and grown in a territory, just because demand in that territory has risen and you can no longer afford it? where have we ended up for that to be a valid argument?
we’ve learned from our parents’ generation: many took out mortgages, moved in together, had children with partners who weren’t right and who eventually broke up; some couldn’t even separate because of the economic dependence between them. i know couples who have separated, who have children, and who still live in the same flat together, while being separated, because they can’t afford to lead separate lives. not even that. and seeing situations like these, are we really going to sustain that the problem isn’t social and structural, but down to people who don’t try hard enough? it makes no sense.
a decent home is a right. i’m not talking about a mansion, or a duplex penthouse, or a gated complex with a pool — that, yes, you’ll probably have to see whether you can afford. i’m talking about the bare minimum: a home where you can feel comfortable, with some square metres, with natural light, with your friends nearby. that shouldn’t require sacrifices. it should be accessible to everyone. and yet, instead of talking about how to fix it, we let the conversation centre on whether i should doubt myself for not making enough of an effort to deserve what i’m asking for. that isn’t right. inevitably the doubts come, inevitably i wonder whether i’ll have to settle for less. and in the end, the very concept of a decent home becomes the most slippery thing of all: what is, for you, a decent home?
