Housing and issues related to it (access, price, guarantees, etc.) are commonly seen as one of the main concerns for people.

A new edition of the survey carried out by Spain's Sociological Research Centre (CIS) shows that, for the majority of respondents, housing is the 'number one problem' in Spain, surpassed only by the government and political parties.

Housing: a multidimensional problem

Housing in Spain is a problem with multiple facets.

Firstly, the price. I currently live in the Barcelona metropolitan area, and trends in the Catalan capital set the pace for developments in the surrounding municipalities. While the average price per square metre for a rental in Barcelona was approximately €12.50 in November 2007 (according to real estate websites), by July 2025 this figure had exceeded €20.

This means that, less than 20 years ago, renting a 40 m² flat in Barcelona cost around €500 per month, whereas now it costs at least €800.

The Barcelona City Council has published on its website that the average monthly rental price in the city is 1,087.2 euros, with prices exceeding 1,200 euros in up to fourteen neighbourhoods, reaching a maximum of 1,839.7 euros in Les Tres Torres.

Another dimension of the housing problem is the combination of a construction deficit and the persistent reality of a large number of empty apartments and houses in Spain.

The latest estimations show that 860,000 new homes are needed, half of which are in large urban centres such as Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.

However, the National Statistics Institute (INE) warns that Spain has 3.8 million empty homes (around 14% of the national housing stock), most of which are in municipalities with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants. The newspaper Expansión reported on towns where between 45% and 60% of homes remain empty.

Another aspect of the housing problem is inequality.

While owning a car has historically been seen as a symbol of status and socioeconomic power, owning a home is now considered an asset not only for the present, but also for the future.

If the current trend continues, the gap between large property owners, ordinary homeowners and those who cannot afford to buy a property will grow.

In this context, it is reasonable to question how some of our missiological models impact and fit into this reality. Are there missionary practices that, by adapting to this situation, actually encourage it even more?

Workers building in vain?

Analysts have linked part of the housing problem to the concept of 'gentrification'.

This term refers to the paradigm shift that many European cities have experienced in recent years, whereby the oldest indigenous neighbourhoods, as well as the social and commercial fabric of municipalities, have lost ground as the phenomenon of globalisation has expanded and occupied precisely those same spaces.

In other words, where there used to be a grocery store and housing had value, there is now a trendy coffee shop franchise and housing prices have increased fivefold.

There are many other factors besides housing prices that influence this situation, such as wage trends and job opportunities. However, as the globalisation process has expanded faster than safeguards have been put in place, tragic crisis situations have arisen.

Amidst the struggle between a threatened neighbourhood movement and the giants of the real estate, tourism, and hospitality sectors, where does the Church stand in its mission? Is the global mission the ‘turning point’ that transforms cities, as Timothy Keller said?

When a church sends a missionary to another country, it is essential that they have prior knowledge of issues such as housing problems.

In Spain, for example, foreign missionaries have played a key role in spreading the gospel over the last two centuries. We must bear this in mind and abandon the popular belief that considers our country a dead end for missionary work.

Nevertheless, a frequent and current phenomenon when approaching missionary work in Spain seems to involve the validation (whether voluntary or indirect) of practices that have caused so much tension.

Today, it is possible to find foreign missionaries who can afford high rents in gentrified neighbourhoods of large cities, while at the same time local churches are being displaced to the outskirts of municipalities and many local church members are unable to live in the same area where they attend church due to the high cost of living, especially housing.

Are global ways of doing mission undermining the local expression of mission? What tensions might this generate not only in society, but also among Christians who share the same faith and missionary goal?

Let us consider two practical and necessary questions that can help prevent global mission from contributing to the gentrification of local contexts in which churches are located and carry out their mission. Let us not be like those workers who tried to build a house without the Lord and ended up in vain (Psalm 127:1).

Firstly, it is important to be strategic about where to carry out the mission.

A professor at the seminary where I studied criticised the obsession some people seem to have with carrying out the mission in coastal areas. In reality, it makes sense that many missionaries decide to serve in coastal municipalities, since data show that most churches in Spain are concentrated on the coast.

However, foreign mission agencies and native denominations need to coordinate common strategies to avoid an 'overconcentration' of missionaries in areas where access to housing is increasingly tense, while other inland regions remain without a presence of the gospel and accumulate empty homes.

If the desire to serve in Spain is sincere, understanding the specific needs of the area is useful when establishing and defining agreed strategies and locations.

Secondly, the preparation of missionary work must take into account the knowledge of these social realities.

The incarnational model of Jesus

God's heart is a heart for mission. It is a mission for the whole of his creation. The model of Christ is the one that primarily sheds light (or should do so) when it comes to understanding this.

His incarnation implies not only the perfect coexistence of divine and human nature, but also an incarnational commitment to all of creation. Therefore, the key point of God's work in all of his creation is the incarnation.

We must also understand the mission as a movement that draws close to others in their circumstances and contexts, echoing the incarnation as closely as possible. For it is through incarnation that Christ draws close to creation and takes on its problems and difficulties until the key moment of the cross.

In this sense, the global mission must be able to express itself through practical local commitments. In order to achieve this, it is necessary not only to understand local situations, but also to make them our own and share them.

I am aware that by affirming this, I am also acknowledging that housing is also a problem for the church and missionaries in Spain.

If the majority of people around us have great difficulty accessing housing, and the mission arrives in local contexts by renting and buying by chequebook power, that will not only harm the witness of the gospel, but also limit our ability to preach and live by the same message.

Jesus himself warned the scribe who said he wanted to follow him that 'foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head' (Matthew 8:20).

Does this mean that a family of foreign missionaries must live on the streets in order to carry out their work in Spain? Obviously not. Rather, it is a matter of understanding the local particularities in which to carry out the mission, so that the ministry is sensitive to them.

Sensitivity is a key aspect of the humility that characterises the gospel. It is through humility that we can find alternatives to models of coexistence that are so far removed from God's design for life.

Jonatan Soriano, journalist, theologian and evangelical pastor in Barcelona.

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