Bilbao, Spain: Housing platform calls rally at City Hall over “lack of institutional response” to housing crisis

The Platform of Social Groups for the Right to Housing, known as Etxebizitza Ekintzak, has called a rally for Wednesday, November 4, at 11:00 in front of Bilbao City Hall. The groups say they are protesting what they describe as a “lack of institutional response” to the growing difficulty of finding affordable housing in the Basque city.

The platform says the municipalities and the Basque Government have fundamental powers to act. It is calling for “concrete and effective measures” to address a situation that, in its view, continues to worsen. A second rally is planned for Friday, November 6, also at 11:00, in front of the Basque Government headquarters in Bilbao, focused on regional housing policy.

According to the platform, the price of new free-market housing in Bilbao already reaches 5,015 euros per square metre. On that basis, it estimates that a 70-square-metre home would cost close to 351,000 euros on average. The groups also report that average rents already exceed 1,000 euros, a level they say keeps many low- and middle-income families out of the market.

The platform also cites an increase in homelessness. Its figures show that the number of people sleeping on the street in Bilbao rose from 247 in 2022 to 605 in 2024. The groups call this increase “alarming” and note that the next official count is planned for 2026. The platform’s demands include guaranteeing housing alternatives for homeless people and for families affected by evictions, a step it links to protecting the vulnerable (Psalm 82:3).

The platform further states that 31,300 families in Bilbao are registered with Etxebide as housing applicants, and that eight in ten apply for social rental housing. It describes the available supply as “insufficient.” The groups also criticize some protected housing (VPO) developments, such as those announced in Zorrozaurre with prices of up to 320,000 euros, saying they are out of reach for many families whose average annual income is around 16,000 euros.

The platform also points to vacant properties. It says Bilbao has about 9,000 empty homes and considers the measures foreseen by the City Council, such as an increase in the IBI property tax on these properties, insufficient. The collectives argue that institutions should use all available tools to bring these homes into use and make them available to people who need a home. Their data put the number of empty homes at around 77,000 in the Basque Country, about 34,000 in Biscay, and 9,000 in Bilbao.

The platform’s other demands include increasing the supply of social rental housing and intervening in the market to prevent housing from being used as a business, with priority given to residential use. The Platform for the Right to Housing-Etxebizitza Ekintzak is calling for participation in the rallies and urging the institutions to give “immediate responses” to a housing crisis that, the groups say, affects more and more citizens.

Source: Read the original report (translated from Spanish)