La lucha por la vivienda en españa (2009-2019): Desde la calle a las instituciones

The financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, and the national policies of commodification and financialization of housing, have made millions of households homeless around the world. This paper analyses the process that have taken place in Spain over the last decade (2009-2019) in a ‘struggle’ to enact the right to housing - a process that has gone from ‘taking the street’ to ‘taking the institutions’. This is analyzed through the lens of Giddens’s theory of structuration, with the aim of assessing the capacity of these processes to transform relationships with authority, the allocation of resources, and systems of meaning. Analysis of PAH and Podemos shows how they have changed the collective imagination and proposed alternatives at a political level, but also the limits in achieving a transformation of housing policy. The case of Spain shows that ‘common people’ can acquire political agency and challenge the capitalist discourse that property rights should be prioritized over the common good, and specifically over the right to housing. This analysis offers lessons that could help understand similar contexts of economic crisis, political delegitimization and breach of the right to housing, such as Greece and Ireland.