Neither governments, nor landlords: tenant rebellion

On February 28, we woke up to the news that the coalition formed between the US and the genocidal state of Israel had unilaterally attacked the Republic of Iran. The continued attacks have left more than 4000 dead, more than 30,000 injured, and multiple critical infrastructures affected. The deepest impacts have clearly been felt by the Iranian and Lebanese populations, without forgetting the Gazan population which continues under continuous siege by the genocidal state.

At 6,447 kilometers away, much further, Europe feels the impacts of the war where it hurts us most, the globally privileged populations: in our pockets. Fuel prices have skyrocketed, reaching $119.24 per barrel of Brent at the end of March.

Faced with this situation, the Government of Spain has decided to move forward with two Royal Decree-Laws that aim to mitigate the economic impact of the war. The first, 7/2026, introduced price containment measures in the energy and mobility sectors, and the second, 8/2026, contains housing measures, clearly introduced reluctantly by the main governing party. From the Tenants' Union, we value these measures as a necessary but insufficient patch.

To begin, according to the CIS, housing is the primary concern in Spain, and rightly so; In the last decade, rental prices have soared by 77%. Being a tenant is living in a state of constant alert, because at any moment you can be a victim of abusive increases, of being forced to pay charges that do not correspond to you, of living in substandard housing or with serious deficiencies that the landlord does not fix, of finding yourself exposed to eviction and, even, of being a victim of de-occupation companies that harass and violate you with total impunity. Those of us who suffer it firsthand know it well.

In this context of rising prices and housing insecurity, the Decree allows us tenants to extend our leases for two years if the contract end date is between March 22, 2026, and December 31, 2027. We just need to communicate this to our landlords during the time the Decree is in effect. During that period, furthermore, annual rent increases are capped at 2%.

They are two clearly insufficient measures, but which at least give a little breathing room to the almost one million households whose rental contracts were ending between this year and the next. Well, the reactionary right wants to take even that small relief away from us. In fact, VOX, the PP, and Junts have announced that they will vote against the Decree. They are the same ones who two months ago shot down the eviction moratorium and left 60,000 vulnerable families without housing alternatives on the verge of homelessness. The PP and Junts align themselves with the far-right and demonstrate, once again, that they are wrapped in the same flag: that of rentism. They do not hesitate to oppose families and neighbors, and to side with vulture funds and landlords who leave people on the street.

Now then, we are also very critical of the government that, after more than seven years in power, has still not addressed the housing crisis. It doesn't surprise us, when the Minister of Housing herself is a landlord.

What measures should be taken? The first and most obvious, lower prices by law. Housing costs us our lives. We cannot settle for freezing rents at historic highs, which is the little that the housing law is achieving in areas declared tense. Furthermore, landlords circumvent the application of the law by moving their business to temporary rentals and room rentals. It is urgent to close these escape routes for speculation and protect the ever-increasing number of people who are forced to live in a room. In Madrid, however, and as in many other autonomous communities, we don't even have tense areas. For Ayuso, "freedom" is paying 71% of our salary to our landlords.

Another essential measure is to recover indefinite leases, which are the rule in countries in our environment such as Germany, France, or the Netherlands. If the landlord does not need the house to live in, but only to do business, we tenants should be able to remain in our homes. Hundreds of thousands of contracts end each year; millions of people who face abusive rent increases or eviction from their homes and neighborhoods. If you are reading this and are in that situation, organize yourself with the tenants' union or your neighborhood housing assembly. As we always say, we are not leaving: we are staying!

Likewise, the main culprits of the situation must be expelled: the vulture funds. Instead of giving them tax advantages and supposedly public housing for them to manage, we must recover the houses they have and constitute with them a truly public housing stock. Our public housing model involves indefinite rentals, prices adjusted to salaries to guarantee universal access, and collective and community management of the buildings.

The last measure we will comment on here, although there would be more, is the outlawing of neo-Nazi thugs who intimidate us at our front doors. Eviction companies are the armed wing of rentism. A supposedly law-abiding state should not allow the exercise of this violence totally outside the law.

We are not very optimistic that the government will take the measures we demand, if they have not made a move in more than seven years. Nor are we optimistic regarding the validation of the Decree on the extension of rents, given the alliance of the right with rentism. That is why, from the Tenants' Union, we are disseminating information about this extension through all means, so that it reaches as many tenants as possible before it is voted on in Congress, even knowing that many will not be able to benefit from it.

We support the Decree and ask for its validation for the simple reason that a patch is better than nothing. A scenario in which a million contracts can be extended is preferable, even though we know the fight doesn't end there. That is why we insist that it is an insufficient measure that leaves out the most vulnerable, and that it will continue to be necessary to push to conquer rights.

Faced with the Government's inaction and the audacity of the landlords, it becomes clear again that the only solution is organized civil disobedience, which is how we have historically conquered rights.

If they impose prices or clauses on us that we cannot pay, we will not do it. We have already shown that rent strikes are possible and they have come to stay. And if they try to evict us from our homes, we will stay. We have the keys to all our homes. We will collectively force each and every landlord to sit down and negotiate fair contracts and we will closely monitor their compliance. Every house, a trench.

This we affirm with the deep knowledge that we are no longer one, or two, but the productive bulk that sustains the rentier system. An unjust system that eats our salaries every month, and that is going to end. Days of agitation are coming in the streets. They are not going to play with our homes, nor will they be able to with all of us. Welcome to the Tenant's Spring.