In the midst of the housing crisis, with the skyrocketing prices and real estate developers warning of a serious deficit that is counted tens of thousands of housing, Madrid risks seeing how around a hundreds of neighbors of the Villa de Vallecas remain on the street. Literally. The news spread on Monday the BEING, the has confirmed The Country and it is warming up and the political debate.
The reason: dozens of humble families who once obtained a social rental thanks to the Obra Social de la Caixa now see how their apartments go on the free market and, with it, the lease termination notices arrive.
What is the reason? To understand it you have to go back a few years and go to the Ensanche de Vallecas, more specifically to Mazaterón and Fresno de Cantespino streets. There are two residential buildings with 220 identical apartments, homes between 40 and 45 square meters (m2) and a single room. The blocks were inaugurated in the heat of the Caixa Social Projects program and allowed quite a few families to benefit from social rents of between 400 and 600 euros, prices well below what is charged today in the free market.
As a reference, according to Idealista in Madrid, the square meter costs 23 eurosso a 45 m2 apartment would require paying a rent of more than 1,000 euros per month. The real estate portal shows that the average is somewhat lower in Villa de Vallecas (€16.1/m2), but even so a quick search confirms that it is difficult to find an available house in the district for less than 800 euros per month. And it doesn’t just come with paying the rent. The advertisements They also require tenants to meet certain requirements, such as a minimum income threshold or an indefinite contract.
But… What is the problem? That tenants who once obtained a social rental in those two buildings through Caixa now find themselves probably having to pack their bags and leave their homes. And they have been living there for more than a decade (in some cases almost two) and their economic situations are far from ideal. These days the press was echoing cases of tenants with a volume of income that does not reach 500 euros monthlyappear to have recognized disabilities or have children and sick in your charge.
Why is that? Very simple. Basically because the apartments that they have been renting for years in exchange for affordable rents are no longer in the same hands and (most importantly) have seen their term as officially protected housing (VPO) expire, so they have entered the free market headlong. In fact the neighbors assure that in the two buildings there are apartments that already apply seasonal rentals for 1,100 euros or that have even gone on sale for 250,000 euros.
There are three key dates to understand the case, according to the information that drives The Country. The first is 2022. That year the tenants claim to have noticed a first relevant change: they suddenly encountered problems when it came to extending the rents that were due when until then, says David Jiménez, one of those affected, “the Foundation had never caused difficulties.”
Although that was several years ago, the neighboring communities did not notice anything strange. People were leaving, but the rest of the tenants did not know why, whether it was by choice, work or because the landlord had decided not to renew their contract. Hence some affected people now speak of “invisible evictions.”
And the other dates? The second came last August, when residents began to receive letters from InmoCaixa (La Caixa’s real estate portfolio manager) informing them that their contracts would not be renewed. In other words, there will be no extensions of rents that expire The precise SER that in some cases this means that the tenants will have to leave in December.
The third date that completes the chronicle and gives a global image of what happened is much more recent: October, which was when the neighbors began to receive another letter related to their homes, only in this case it was not signed by Caixa or any entity related to it. Its author was Mosaic Propcoa fund that informed them that it is now responsible for their contracts. The reason: the foundation has sold the apartments, which for the neighbors meant a bucket of cold water.
What do the neighbors and La Caixa say? The first, the neighbors, speak of “speculation” and an attempt to expel them from what have been their homes for the last few years, homes to which they had access at the time by meeting certain requirements and which since then they have been paying as agreed.
According to their calculations, right now there are just over a hundred (110) people who maintain their InmoCaixa contracts and, therefore, risk having to pack their bags. Among them there are several dozen who will face this scenario over the next few months, during 2026 or even in December.
“I collect 480 euros in aid for people over 52 years of age and with that I pay the rent and little else. They tell me to enter the affordable housing lottery, but if I already have affordable housing, why do I have to start over from scratch? They don’t give me options, there is no real alternative,” relates in Madrid Diario Mercedes, 60 years old, 11 of which she has spent in one of the apartments in Vallecas. A spokesperson for the La Caixa Foundation explained these days to The Country that simply the nature of the apartments has changed and now they focus on other social areas.
What does it say exactly? “This is a development whose VPO term had expired and, therefore, had gone to the free market. Tenants are always notified in a timely manner, complying with the conditions of the contracts that both parties have signed,” they insist from the entity, which has “redirected” its efforts in social matters towards fronts such as employment or child poverty.
For now, the case has already generated a notable political upheavalwith Más Madrid asking the Municipal Housing and Land Company to acquire the apartments to include them in the public affordable rental pool and the socialists demanding a protocol that can be activated during sales of social housing to private funds. The objective, they insistis to avoid evictions and speculation.
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