A Statement from SHAC
A massive housing crisis is shaking the Spanish state. It sends a clear warning to our own government. The housing emergency will lead to unrest, and it needs a fundamental plan to end the commercialisation of our homes.
As soaring costs push Spanish working-class communities to the brink, a powerful mass movement has erupted, forcing the political establishment onto the defensive.
For eight years in office, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez took no substantial measures to solve the housing crisis. But now, under intense pressure from a surging grassroots movement, his government has belatedly attempted to introduce some limited reforms.
The trigger for the protests was the September eviction of 87 year-old Maricarmen Abascal, who was forcibly lifted in her wheelchair from the home she had lived in for more than 70 years. She had been unable to afford steep rent increases. Maricarmen died shortly after the eviction. For many in Spain, the landlord’s callousness action was symbolic of the whole brutal housing system.
Reform blocked
As a result of the incident and subsequent protests, Sánchez’s menu of reforms included an eviction ban lasting until 2030, but the proposals were voted down by the right wing within the government. Caught between the will of the people and the vested interests of politicians and lobbyists, Sánchez called a snap general election. His hope is that ordinary citizens will lend him their votes on the promise of reforms he failed to deliver previously.
Critically, in Spain the anger from below has not spilled into rioting, but was channelled through the organised working class in a joint initiative between their trade unions (primarily the CGT) and their national Tenants’ Union (Sindicat de Llogateres). In support of the housing protestors’ demands, Spain’s two largest trade union federations have called a 24-hour general strike just eighteen days before the election.
Inevitably, housing-related demands are central says Catalan News:
“the strike calls for lower rents in line with workers’ wages, permanent rental contracts and a halt to evictions where no alternative accommodation is available.”
It adds that their demands also include a ban on speculative property purchases and to “bring vacant homes and properties used for tourist accommodation back into residential use.”
Two very important calls are that housing unions should be formally recognised as representative bodies, and that rent strikes should be protected under laws similar to those safeguarding workers taking industrial action in the workplace. Such initiatives would help maintain a focus for the organised power of tenants and residents.
With the involvement of labour unions, the unrest has tapped into more than just the housing emergency to incorporate broader austerity measures suffered by workers since the banking collapse in 2008. According to Catalan News, the housing movement and trade unions described the action as “a united strike where nobody is left out.” Trade unionists want shorter working hours, better wages, and higher pensions.
The British Context: A Shared Struggle
The crisis is not unique to Spain. It is also unfolding right here. While Spanish tenants pay an eye-watering 47% of their wages in rent, workers in Britain are not far behind. In London, average rents have reached a staggering 41% of average income, and nationally, tenants must cough up more than a third of their earnings just to keep a roof over their heads.
Even in social housing where rents are theoretically capped to keep them affordable, the Labour government has allowed social landlords to apply an annual rent increase of CPI (inflation) plus an additional 1% for a whole decade, ensuring housing costs will consistently outpace inflation.
One measure of the crisis is the swelling numbers of people on social housing waiting lists. In England, it has reached around 1.34 million households with the highest backlog since 2014. In Ireland, it has passed a historic milestone, reaching 50,381 households and marking a 30% increase over the last decade.
Similarly, social housing applications in Scotland and Wales have reached record numbers. Right across the UK, these shameful outcomes have been driven by a severe deficit in new builds and the historic loss of affordable housing stock.
The effects of unregulated service charges are a further stressor on household incomes and on householders, including renters. The Regulator of Social Housing reported in 2025 that service charge income for housing associations soared by 15.8% to £1.9 billion in the year to March 2024. Over the same period, service charge disputes brought to the First Tier (Property) Tribunal found that tenants and residents had been overcharged in over 70% of cases. It is easy enough to join the dots.
Homes and Communities
Running alongside cost and supply are further significant problems. Measures introduced through ‘Awaab’s Law’ after a toddler died from the effects of damp and mould in his flat, have failed to force landlords to improve their performance on repairs and housing conditions.
And according to the latest data collected by the Regulator of Social Housing, the largest landlords are still failing to deal effectively with antisocial behaviour (ASB), leaving its victims to be tormented by perpetrators. Several of the UK’s largest housing associations scored a satisfaction rate of just 50-55% for ASB handling (Home Group, Riverside, Bromford, Platform, Sanctuary, and L&Q).
The impact of the cladding scandal continues causing financial and psychological distress for those affected. Many remain trapped in unsellable homes as a result. The cladding problem itself was triggered after the Grenfell fire killed 72 people following the likely criminal actions of various individuals and agencies who are yet to be held to account almost a decade after the tragedy.
Fuelling each of these factors are the consistent, structural barriers that tenants and residents face if they want to challenge their landlord, whether it is over repairs, costs, regeneration schemes, or ASB. Enforcement and compliance with the law remains a job for the individual rather than being effectively managed by regulatory bodies.
The processes are fragmented and fraught with legal complexities, cost and evidential burdens, information asymmetry, and even where successful, the remedies are invariably retrospective following a protracted and painful struggle.
Complaints to SHAC reveal that real and anticipated landlord reprisals against those who do complain are rife, and our research has shown that disabled people are particularly affected.
Our Appeal: Unite, Organise, Build
But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can unite to overcome the false divides between renters and leaseholders, social and private tenants, and rural and city dwellers. Even when the specific manifestations of the housing crisis vary, they share an underlying commonality. We must therefore unite under a single demand for housing justice.
We offer a stark warning to the British government: take decisive action now, or face the consequences. Stop listening exclusively to those with vested financial interests in squeezing tenants and residents to the bone, whether or not they wear the guise of social landlords.
The boiling point witnessed in Spain could be a glimpse into Britain’s near future. If the government continues to ignore the housing emergency, fails to provide genuinely affordable homes, and refuses to implement robust tenant and resident protections, the anger will inevitably find an outlet.
But we cannot afford to wait for politicians to save us. We can work together to resist the UK’s housing emergency. History – and the lessons from Spain – show that real change happens when ordinary people organise within their communities, workplaces, and campaign groups to demand it.
Our proposal is a national, fully democratic National Housing Union to represent all those who have housing problems, and as in Spain, we aim to work with the trade union movement to build it.
20 October 2026
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