By the EESC Workers' Group

Housing is a basic human need. Or… housing is a commodity from which to extract wealth. This second reality is seriously undermining the first. In cities everywhere, new developments are frequently seen. In many countries, the number of housing units created easily outpaces population growth, yet for most people, owning their own home remains a distant and unlikely possibility.

This is not simply a question of supply and demand, although pressure on the most desired areas certainly plays a role, particularly as jobs become increasingly concentrated in large cities. With the public sector largely absent from providing social housing, and with rising construction costs, new developments are not built for working or middle-class people to live in. Instead, they are built for investors to purchase, rent, upsell, rinse and repeat the cycle.

At first glance, renting appears to be another path to securing housing, but this too has become increasingly difficult. Tourist and short-term rentals have provided landlords with an easy way to make money from their investments or family inheritances without the need to engage in long-term rental contracts. Shrinking supply and growing demand from jobseekers and people priced out of the buying market have only driven prices even higher.

With no end in sight to this speculative dynamic, many people find themselves facing a perfect storm of high living costs, rising prices for basic goods, and poor working conditions. Moreover, this situation highlights the rapidly deteriorating conditions in our countries: goods and services produced or managed under proper working conditions become unaffordable for most.

As a result, people turn to goods cheaply produced abroad through labour exploitation, while the market offers a never-ending stream of subscriptions that provide entertainment and the illusion of affluence. App-mediated, underpaid services allow the exploited and the exploiter to exchange roles depending on the time of day, while companies cash in. You might not have a house, but at least you can get a soggy fast-food burger made by minimum-wage workers, delivered to your shared apartment by a bogus self-employed ‘rider’ without insurance, for a significant portion of your limited disposable income.

The EU must lead the way in applying pressure, but it is up to Member States, which have the competences, resources and mandate, to change this situation. The alternative is not simply the continuation of the current dystopia, but a deep undermining of fundamental social achievement with potentially catastrophic effects on social cohesion, political stability and the very core of our democratic societies. This is not a prediction – it is already happening.