Venezuelan Right Wing Demands Thatcher-Style Housing Reform

Venezuela's right wing-controlled National Assembly took a step closer Thursday to approving a bill that would privatize ownership of public housing.

The proposal passed the assembly on its first reading, meaning the bill can now be debated in further detail by legislators.

The bill has widespread support among the majority right-wing coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), but is fiercely opposed by President Nicolas Maduro.

Under the proposal, tenants of public housing units would be handed property deeds. Most residents of public housing live in units built by the government under the Venezuelan Great Housing Mission, launched under Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez to make it easier for Venezuelans to access affordable housing.

The MUD's proposed reforms can be compared to former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's signature 1980s housing reform, which likewise enabled public housing tenants to buy their homes. In the short term, Thatcher's reform led to a spike in home ownership, but has since been credited by many observers as one of the key causes of the U.K.'s current housing crisis.

Kevin Gulliver from the think tank Human City has argued the Thatcher-era reforms “laid the foundations for unsustainable levels of home ownership which contributed to the financial crash in 2008.”

“Thatcher's housing legacy is one of tenure polarization and growing inequality, worsening housing market affordability, housing supply shortfalls and a deepening housing crisis exacerbated by her successors' austerity economics and welfare cuts,” Gulliver argued in a 2013 piece for The Guardian.

Critics of the housing reform argue the MUD's housing reform could likewise exacerbate Venezuela's housing shortage.

ANALYSIS: Housing in Venezuela Could Be About to Get Bad, Really Bad

Maduro has called on his supporters to protest against the proposal.

“Only a union of the government and people can defend the right to housing,” he said.

“The Venezuelan Great Housing Mission cannot be privatized!” he added.