What happens to the right to housing when a home becomes more valuable as an asset than a place to live? Thousands of kilometers apart, people are facing the same problems: unaffordable rents, the struggle to save for their first home, and an increasingly competitive housing market in cities where residents often compete for housing amid high demand for short-term accommodation. Prima facie, the problem may seem quite simple: there simply are not enough homes. Yet housing is not merely another commodity. It is a recognized human right. The right to housing has been recognized within the international human rights framework since 1948, when Article 25(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights acknowledged housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. Still, if housing is not a luxury but a right, at least on paper, why does securing a place to live remain an issue for so many?

Living in Rome, I have been lucky enough never to experience the frustrating search for student accommodation myself. Nonetheless I do not need to have experienced it to see how widespread the problem has become: young people start searching months before the academic year begins, only to find themselves choosing between uncomfortable lodgings and rents that are difficult to afford. But Rome is no exception. Milan, Madrid, New York: different housing markets and yet a familiar situation. People are increasingly being priced out of the cities in which they study, work and live. The global nature of the problem was particularly visible only a few days ago, when Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri met with his New York counterpart Zohran Mamdani, on the sidelines of the Urban 20 Mayors Summit in New York. Housing was one of the topics at the center of their conversation, as the two mayors compared the policies their cities have adopted to better ensure this right. Rome and New York differ enormously in size, housing markets and welfare systems, yet both are wondering how they can remain affordable to the people who actually make their lives there. Almost eighty years after housing entered the international human-rights framework, local governments are still looking for ways to put that recognition into practice.

However, government intervention is only one factor in the housing debate. On 23 September, 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal was evicted in Madrid from the apartment in which she had lived since 1956. The building had been acquired in 2018 by Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión, a real-estate company, and the rent she had historically paid, around €500, was eventually subject to a substantial increase. The legal dispute itself went beyond the question of rent: it centered on the duration of her old, regulated tenancy and the validity of the successive transfers of the original lease within her family. The story did not end with the eviction: following the protests, an agreement seems to be reached that may allow Abascal to return to her home. Although the case concerns neither tourism nor short-term rentals, the reaction to Maircarmen’s eviction reflects a broader anxiety that has been growing in many Spanish cities: the feeling that housing market is moving away from the needs of those who actually live in these cities.

In fact, Maricarmen’s case comes at a peculiar moment for Spain. The country has experienced strong economic growth and job creation in recent years, outperforming other major euro-area economies, still access to housing remains one of its most visible social pressures. Hence the contradiction: the economy is growing, while living in it becomes increasingly expensive. In Spain, housing construction has remained relatively subdued, while finding an affordable place to live has become a visible source of social pressure (and this is before tourism and short-term rentals even enter the picture). Having a home means more than having a roof over one’s head. It means having a stable point from which a person can develop their personality and participate in the life of the community: it determines not only where people live, but also how they are able to live their lives. So, the question of affordability cannot be reduced to prices alone and neither to how many tourists visit a city at a given time. But, if the people who grew up, study and work in a city can no longer sustain a life there, who is that city ultimately for? Residents, visitors or investors?

Maricarmen’s story perfectly reflects how the meaning of the same four walls can change depending on who is looking at them: memory or monetization. And note: neither dimension has to disappear for the other to exist. As a jurist, I do not believe that recognizing housing as a social necessity requires denying its economic dimension; the difficulty starts when those two faces collide. Private property remains private property: a house can legitimately be sold, rented or used as a source of income or investment. The Italian Constitution itself protects private property under Article 42: the fact that housing generates income is neither new nor problematic. Perhaps the point, then, is not to choose between a home and an asset. A house can be both. The question is what happens when being one starts making it harder to be the other. A house can be a source of income for those who own it. But there may also be someone hoping to call it home.