Yes We Can!

This is the story of how a few people, in the name of many others, fought for years for the constitutional right to a dignified home and to open a debate about the abusive conditions of Spanish mortgage law. It tells how they were able to start a Popular Legislative Initiative supported by a million and a half signatures which, in spite of the many obstacles in its way, was accepted for processing in February 2013, after changing – for the first time in the history of Spanish democracy – the position of the parliamentary majority. It also recounts how, soon afterwards, the European Law Courts ruled that Spanish mortgage regulations infringed upon fundamental rights, obliging the law to be changed and opening the way to freezing many evictions that were already underway. This is the story of the success of those from the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (Platform of People Affected by Mortgages), whose most visible face is Ada Colau, who campaigned for Spanish law to allow retroactive payments in the event of a default, a moratorium on evictions and social rents for empty homes in the hands of banking entities. An objective that for the first time no longer seems a utopian dream.