87-Year-Old's Eviction Ignites Spain's Housing Crisis Reckoning

Maricarmen Abascal was 17 when she first moved into her Madrid apartment in the mid-1950s, taking over a lease her father had signed. For seven decades, the place held her life: the living room where she watched Franco's death on television in 1975, the bedrooms where her parents died. She paid €500 a month—a capped rent that had held steady for generations. Then, in 2018, an investment firm called Urbagestión bought the building.

Within months, the company demanded €1,650 a month. That was a 230 percent increase. Initially, they had asked for €2,650—a threefold jump—but settled on the lower figure after legal resistance. Maricarmen, now 87 and living on disability benefits of €1,350 a month, could not pay. She had nowhere else to go. For eight years, she fought in court. Three times, judges blocked the eviction. Three times, Urbagestión appealed. Each appeal drew more attention. In June, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights called for the eviction to be halted and for her to be offered affordable housing. Madrid's city council later said she had declined a place in an aged care home. Then, in late September, the courts ruled against her. The eviction would proceed.

On the morning it happened, police officers broke down her door. Reporters were kept back. Protesters who had gathered to shield her were dragged away. Paramedics wheeled the 87-year-old woman out on a stretcher—not because she was ill, but because she had nowhere to go. The image traveled across Spain. It landed on screens and in conversations. It became the thing people could not unsee.

What made Maricarmen's case ignite a nation was not that it was unique. It was that it was ordinary. Over the past decade, average rental prices in Spain had nearly doubled, reaching €15.10 per square meter by August. The Bank of Spain estimated the country was short 700,000 homes. Social housing made up less than 2 percent of the national stock—compared to 6 or 7 percent across the European Union. Millions of Spaniards were trapped in the same squeeze. Maricarmen had simply become the face of it.

Within days, a tent encampment appeared at Puerta del Sol, one of Madrid's busiest squares. The Madrid Tenant Union organized it. Valeria Racu, the union's spokesperson, was direct: either investment rental practices change, or the government falls. Spain was heading toward elections within a year. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, already under pressure over other crises, announced he was working "against the clock" to pass new housing regulations—measures he said were "for Maricarmen and for the millions of Spaniards who are suffering." He promised to restrict "vulture funds" from bulk-buying and reselling properties, to ban evictions of vulnerable tenants until 2030, and to tax seasonal rentals.

But something unexpected happened first. After five days of protest and more than four hours of negotiation, Urbagestión reversed course. The company offered Maricarmen a new eight-year lease with rent capped at no more than 30 percent of her net income—essentially restoring what she had paid before. She accepted. From her hospital bed, she spoke to supporters: "I have fought so that others can learn to fight for what's theirs."

The victory was hers, but the fight was far from over. Congress rejected Sánchez's housing measures on Friday, raising the possibility of an early election call. Tent cities were spreading—Barcelona, Seville, Palma de Mallorca. In Madrid, crowds gathered outside the assembly chanting "your profits, our misery." The tenant union announced mass protests would continue. "There are years when nothing happens, and weeks when history is made," the union said. "This could be one of them."