An 87-year-old Spanish woman was forcibly evicted on Wednesday from the Madrid apartment she had lived in for more than 70 years, in a case that highlights a growing housing crisis in the country.
A video shows Maricarmen Abascal, in a wheelchair, being carried out of a building in the Retiro district of the Spanish capital on a stretcher and taken into an ambulance.
Hundreds of supporters had gathered outside the building overnight to protest his eviction, with dozens of police holding them back as some tried to stop the eviction from continuing. In a social media video posted Friday by Madrid’s tenants’ union, Abascal gave thanks for the support she had received.
Abascal’s lawyer, Beatriz Duro, described the force used during the eviction as “completely disproportionate and unnecessary” and denounced the intransigence of the building’s owners.
The case has drawn new attention to the ongoing housing crisis in Spain’s big cities, as gentrification has caused rents to skyrocket and the stock of affordable housing to shrink, leading to growing public anger.
Tenants unions and other housing groups held protests and rallies in 16 cities on Thursday, including Granada, Logroño and Zaragoza. Madrid’s tenants’ union plans to hold another large protest in the capital on Saturday evening.
An investment fund acquired the Abascal building in 2018 and requested a large increase in its rent. She had been fighting eviction for more than five years, according to Madrid’s tenants’ union.
Duro said court officials and representatives of the Urbagestión fund refused to stay the eviction despite an ongoing court case, humanitarian appeals and evidence that public authorities were working to find alternative housing.
“They are all inhumane,” Abascal said in an interview with Spanish television the day before his expulsion. “It’s like I live with a machete on the back of my neck, ready to be cut at any moment.”
Duro also said an anonymous person offered to cover the rent payment, but the landlord refused to sign a new lease.
“We tried to negotiate with the owners until the last moment, and they categorically refused everything,” she said, denouncing “the lack of humanity” in her treatment and “all these public resources” channeled to allow the eviction.
Urbagestión did not respond to a request for comment.
This new wave of anger comes after protests in recent years against overtourism in Barcelona, where activists say a rise in the number of apartments used for short-term vacation rentals has contributed to a shortage of affordable housing.
The European Union announced new rules earlier this month aimed at tackling the housing crisis caused by short-term rentals in tourist hotspots.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the expulsion “a social tragedy that we cannot accept neither as a country nor, of course, from the point of view of public institutions.”
Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, Sánchez accused Madrid’s conservative regional government of pursuing luxury penthouses while ignoring demand for social housing.
Irene Hernández López, a 31-year-old testing engineer living and renting in Chamberí, about 2 miles from Retiro, said what happened to Abascal was “scandalous” and she fears similar evictions are already happening for other tenants in the city.
“Housing has become a product that people do business with,” she told NBC News. “It doesn’t matter if it’s your personal world, where you live and where you live your life. »
Hernández López, who pays 500 euros ($570) for a room in an apartment she shares with two others, said she was currently looking to move because the property was old and needed repairs, but that the rental market in Madrid was “terrible,” with prices “rising extremely quickly” and very little availability.
“Some rooms cost 500 euros or 600 euros and you wonder, ‘How am I supposed to live here? How can I pay 500 euros for this?'” she said. “I think prices should be regulated, because wages are not increasing while house prices continue to rise. I don’t know how we are supposed to continue.”
Dan Nicander, general secretary of the International Tenants Union, said the situation in Spain was comparable to what his organization had seen in many countries across Europe.
“That’s part of the problem of financialization, looking at housing as an asset rather than housing for people,” he told NBC News.
It’s “really difficult” for people living in these houses to do anything about it, he added, saying the responsibility is on politicians “to regulate the market so that it’s not so easy to buy and invest and not use the houses as housing.”
“Housing is a right,” he said. “Above all, it is a fundamental right. It should not be a commodity.”
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