Spain making major investment in public housing and subsidies so people can afford homes

MADRD (AP) — Spain's government on Tuesday approved a sweeping plan to alleviate the country's housing problem, one of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez ’s main political vulnerabilities ahead of elections next year.

Rising rental and housing costs are pricing many Spaniards out of the market, despite a recent economic boom. Incomes have failed to keep up. Analysts say tourism and population growth in cities driven by immigration have further strained supply.

The new plan, worth 7 billion euros ($8.23 billion), triples government investment in public housing over the next four years. It ensures that subsidized housing cannot be reclassified after a few years. It also includes help for young renters and home buyers.

“It is a significant step forward. For the first time in decades, there is a serious budgetary commitment,” said Raluca Budian, associate director of the Observatory for Decent Housing at the Barcelona-based Esade business school.

About 40% of the money will be earmarked for growing the public housing supply, which Spain lacks compared to the European average, while 30% will be set aside for property renovations, the government said. That will include funds for making homes more energy-efficient and building in depopulated parts of the country.

The rest will go toward subsidies, with a focus on young people.

“The public is demanding an agreement to address the main problem currently affecting them,” Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez said Tuesday. Housing routinely comes up as Spaniards' top concern, according to state pollster CIS.

Housing costs in Spain rose nearly 13% year-on-year at the end of 2025, according EU statistics agency Eurostat.

Spain ranks near the bottom of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries with public housing for rent, with under 2% of available supply. The OECD average is 7%. In France, it is 14%, Britain 16% and the Netherlands 34%.

In the past, Spain built housing with public funds that later passed into private ownership. Once they were sold, they disappeared from the public housing stock.

Associated Press journalist Joseph Wilson contributed from Barcelona.

This version corrects the location of the Escade school to Barcelona-based.

FILE - People gather during a demonstration to protest high housing costs in Barcelona, Spain, April 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)

The company that operates the cruise ship at the center of a hantavirus outbreak told The Associated Press Wednesday that it expects to know by the end of the week if the vessel will keep to its cruising schedule for the rest of the summer, as it previously indicated it would.

The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is listed on Oceanwide Expeditions' website as scheduled to depart on a cruise later in May that would take it to the Arctic for a series of cruises throughout the summer.

Three cruise ship passengers have died, including a Dutch couple whom health officials believe were the first exposed to the virus while visiting South America. In all, there have been 11 cases reported in the outbreak, nine of which have been confirmed.

On Monday, after the ship reached Spain's Canary Islands where all remaining passengers were taken off, Oceanwide Expeditions said that it did not “foresee changes to our operations” — which included a new cruise beginning May 29.

But on Wednesday the company said it expects “clarity on whether the vessel will sail and the sailing schedule by the end of this week.”

More than 120 people on board during the outbreak — all passengers and some crew — disembarked on Sunday and Monday and are now quarantined in several countries. The ship then set sail for Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where it is expected to arrive on May 17 or 18, Oceanwide Expeditions says.

Twenty-five crew members, two health workers and the body of one of the passengers who died are still on board. None are showing any symptoms, the company has said.

Hantavirus usually spreads from rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people, though the Andes virus detected on the Hondius may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece, and Shastri reported from Milwaukee.

Passengers board a plane bound for Eindhoven, after disembarking from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the airport in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Monday, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez)

The hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius is seen at anchor at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Monday, May 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez)