An impact on public access to the right point to housing has to be the starting for planning housing policies in cities. The needs of the people depend on their demographic development and available housing stock, also types of housing tenure, and the conditions and prices of houses. The changes have been observed in the population’s profile. The ageing trend of Barcelona’s population ought to make us reflect on the city profile. Moreover, it has been observed that the elderly people live alone and three out of every four are women. It indicates that the authorities will need to take special planning of housing alternatives for these elderly people. The percentage of households living off rent rose from 30.1% to 38.2% between 2011 and 2017.

There are numerous perspectives on the housing challenge and the following pages bring together the viewpoints of the various sectors involved in solving this problem, namely, public authorities, social movements, the property sector, the financial world, architects, the academic world, the social, solidarity and cooperative economy, the third sector and so on. This process has involved separating the financial value of housing from the real needs it meets. Only this can explain why the big investors have a large number of properties left unused, as “the important thing is not to use them but to exploit them as an investment fund”, and why private property has been prioritised over other forms of housing tenure. For citizens, ownership is not the safest way to access housing, as the mortgage crisis of 2008 showed. For capital, on the other hand, it is the easiest way to turn it into a financial asset.