Protesters camp overnight after deportation of elderly Spanish woman

MADRID (AP) — Protesters outraged by the expulsion of an 87-year-old woman camped overnight in Madrid’s historic Puerta del Sol square, where other demonstrators – including multi-generational families – joined them on Sunday for a second day of demonstrations against the violence in Spain. housing crisis.

Tens of thousands of people marched in Madrid on Saturday to protest the eviction of María del Carmen Abascal from the apartment in the upscale Retiro neighborhood where she had lived for more than seven decades.

The demonstrators are demanding stronger protection for tenants, measures to combat fraud and a ban on evictions when there is no alternative housing.

Many refused to leave after Saturday’s march and set up tents at Puerta del Sol for the night.

“The housing situation is unsustainable,” said Natalia Navarro, a 27-year-old actress who was among the campers on the square. “We are all on the streets because we are fed up. »

“The wave of indignation and anger that has been unleashed is now unstoppable,” said Alicia del Río, spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants Union, which led the protests.

“We will stay here” until the government passes new laws, including indefinite rental contracts, and ends evictions like Abascal’s, del Río told reporters in the square on Sunday. Spain’s socialist government is expected to announce new measures at its weekly cabinet meeting next Tuesday.

The expulsion “triggered these social unrest”

On September 23, Abascal was carried from her apartment on a stretcher and placed in an ambulance as her supporters – who had tried unsuccessfully to prevent the eviction – chanted her nickname “Maricarmen”.

“I failed to defend my home, but I fought so that others would learn to fight for what is theirs,” Abascal said in a video recorded from her hospital bed after the eviction.

Images of the eviction spread widely across Spain, fueling outrage and criticism of public authorities and real estate investment companies accused of evicting residents from their homes. Critics often refer to these companies as “vulture funds.”

“Maricarmen was, in a way, the straw that triggered these social unrest,” said Simón de la Riva, 43, a teacher who participated in Saturday’s protests.

Speaking at a Socialist Party rally in Madrid, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addressed Abascal directly: “I have a message for you, Maricarmen: the government is working tirelessly to present a royal decree on housing next Tuesday. And I ask the parliamentary groups to make a final effort to have it validated in the National Parliament for Maricarmen.”

Abascal criticized Sánchez and blamed him for his ordeal.

“Does he not realize the amount of evictions that take place on a daily basis? she asked in an interview with Spanish public television channel RTVE the day before she was forcibly evicted from her home. “Does he not realize, or does he not want to realize?

A house for seven decades

Spanish media reported that Abascal’s father first rented the apartment in 1956 and that she remained there as a rent-controlled tenant after her parents died.

The building changed ownership in 2018 and Abascal was offered the chance to buy the apartment, but he could not afford it, according to the Madrid Tenants Union.

Urbagestión, an investment fund that later bought the home, increased its monthly rent by 500 euros ($570) to 2,650 euros.

He then lowered the rent to 1,650 euros, which Abascal still could not pay with his pension, the union said.

Rising costs and growing housing shortage

Rising costs and housing shortage weigh on many Spaniards out of the marketdespite strong economic growth in Europe’s fourth largest economy. Incomes have not kept pace with rising housing costs, and analysts say population growth in cities, driven by tourism and immigration, has put additional pressure on the limited housing supply.

The Bank of Spain estimated the country was short of around 550,000 homes last year, with Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia accounting for a substantial share.

The protests in Madrid’s symbolic square this weekend reminded many in Spain of the historic demonstrations that began on May 15, 2011, when members of the “indignados movement” camped for 28 days straightsparking similar sit-ins across the country and around the world. The movement was a reaction to evictions and other problems following a global economic crisis, including unemployment, austerity measures and corruption.

Estefania Molina, a political scientist and columnist, said the stakes of popular frustration were growing. In 2011, “people protested because they couldn’t buy an apartment.”

“Today the protest is about not being able to rent a room in someone else’s house,” she told Spanish television.

Spain ranks near the bottom of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for subsidized public rental housing, which represents less than 2 percent of the country’s housing stock. The European Union average is 8%.

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Brito reported from Barcelona, ​​Spain. Associated Press journalist Suman Naishadham contributed to this report from Madrid.