Inequality and housing

Abstract

The housing system in Spain has serious difficulties in ensuring the right to decent and affordable housing for the entire population; paradoxically such difficulties are not due to insufficient supply. In the present circumstances, this deficit is resulting in a significant increase of people at risk of poverty and social exclusion. It is discussed in the article how public spending is totally insufficient given the structural constraints of the system, so the inequality gap widens and worsens loss of social cohesion. No one dares to deny that housing is one of the pillars supporting the welfare state in Europe, along with health, education, services to people, but this article would like to emphasize the fact that housing is actually the pillar with less recognition and even more with the lowest theoretical treatment. Is analyzed in this article how the minor consideration of housing vector is evident in the practical realization of public policy and in the volume of public expenditures on social protection. It is also seen, as in the case of Spain (and Catalonia), the underestimation reaches higher and more disturbing levels within the set of countries in the European Union and has a significant influence on the rates of poverty and social exclusion.