An investment firm evicted an 87-year-old. Now, Spain is fighting back
It was an image of an 87-year-old woman on a stretcher, wheeled out by paramedics, that sparked a national movement.
She was not sick. Rather, evicted.
Maricarmen Abascal, who uses a wheelchair, was stretchered out of her Madrid home. (Getty Images: Luciano Lima)
Maricarmen Abascal had lived in her Madrid apartment for more than 70 years.
She took over the lease her father signed in 1956, and enjoyed capped rent.
Then, in 2018, her apartment was bought by an investment firm.
The monthly rent soon soared from €500 ($811) to €1,650 ($2,678).
And Maricarmen, a pensioner with a disability whose monthly benefits total €1,350 ($2,192), was forced out in a court-ordered eviction.
A sign supporting the pensioner reads: "This system must burn. Maricarmen, you are not alone." (Reuters: Susana Vera)
For Spaniards, the eviction stirred up a deep-seated anger over a housing crisis that has only worsened in recent years.
Previously, protests included flotillas in the path of cruise ships and water pistol protests, as locals blamed tourism for housing unaffordability.
But it is Maricarmen's plight that could be the catalyst for real change to protect renters.
Fighting for a sanctuary
Days before her eviction, Maricarmen walked writer David Uclés through her Retiro home of more than seven decades.
She showed him the living room where she watched the coverage of former Spanish leader and dictator Francisco Franco's death in 1975.
She showed him the bedrooms where her mother and father drew their final breaths.
"I've always felt safe here," she told Uclés and Spanish newspaper El País.
"My home has been everything to me. I wouldn't exist without it."
Maricarmen cries as she waits to see whether she will be evicted. (Getty Images: Fernando Sanchez/Europa Press)
The apartment in the upscale central Madrid suburb has been Maricarmen's sanctuary since she was 17.
But for the past eight years, it has also turned into a battleground in her David-and-Goliath fight.
After real estate investment company Urbagestión took over Maricarmen's lease in 2018, it first attempted to raise the rent to €2,650 ($4,313) — a 300 per cent increase.
That was later decreased to €1,650 ($2,678).
What followed was a drawn-out court feud over the new contract.
Three previous attempts to evict her were blocked by the courts. And with each appeal by Urbagestión, public attention on the case grew.
In June, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights called for the pensioner's eviction to be halted and for her to be offered affordable alternative accommodation.
Madrid City Council said later that Maricarmen had declined its offer of a place in an aged care home.
Then, in late September, the courts ruled in Urbagestión's favour.
Maricarmen would be evicted.
Maricarmen attending protests in May 2026, as interest in her case grows. (Reuters: Kacper Pempe)
A groundswell of protesters gathered at Maricarmen's address to protect the pensioner.
"Fight for your housing because we have the right to it," she told the crowd of hundreds on September 22.
The next morning, police officers beat down Maricarmen's door.
Reporters were cordoned off, and several demonstrators were dragged away.
Spanish riot police remove one of Maricarmen's supporters. (Reuters: Susana Vera)
Maricarmen, 'the last straw'
Over the past decade, the average rental price per square metre in Spain has almost doubled, reaching €15.10 ($24.62) per square metre in August, according to real estate portal Idealista.
The Bank of Spain estimates that the country of about 50 million people is short of 700,000 homes, based on the gap between demand and new construction.
Social housing in Spain makes up less than 2 per cent of the housing stock, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data.
The European Union average is about 6–7 per cent.
Protesters did not back down as Maricarmen recovered in hospital.
Instead, they built a tent encampment in Puerta del Sol, one of Madrid's busiest landmarks.
"Maricarmen is one person, but there are many people in this situation," one protester said.
"We want the right to decent housing for all."
A 43-year-old teacher, Simón de la Riva, said: "Maricarmen has been, in a way, the last straw that sparked this social unrest, but we've been dealing with this whole issue for a long time now."
The encampment was led largely by Madrid's Tenant Union, with aims set out by spokesperson Valeria Racu.
Either the investment rental falls or the government falls: "Let it be very clear," she said.
The tents mirrored a similar 2011 protest in Puerta del Sol against austerity policies. (AP: Manu Fernandez)
Spain is expected to head to an election in less than 12 months.
Still facing heat over the Ceuta crisis, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has told the public he is working "against the clock" to bring new housing regulations into law.
The new decrees would be "for Maricarmen and for the millions of Spaniards who are suffering from the housing crisis".
"This is not a question of ideology; it is a question of humanity,"Mr Sánchez said.
Maricarmen has become the symbol of Spain's housing crisis. (Getty Images: Fernando Sanchez/Europa Press)
Evictions ban and a rising movement
"We didn't think this was going to happen because situations like this happen all the time," Urbagestión co-owner Ricardo Alonso told conservative outlet Horizonte.
He said protesters had pursued and overwhelmed the company.
Eventually, Urbagestión relented.
After five days of protest and more than four hours of meetings, Urbagestión offered Maricarmen a new eight-year rental contract on September 28.
The contract came with a capped rent that would not exceed 30 per cent of her net income, similar to what she paid before the company took over in 2018.
A demonstrator burns a sign bearing images of the owners of Urbagestión. (Reuters: Alejandro Martinez Velez)
Mr Sánchez followed shortly after, with two new housing measures.
Among his promises were plans to stop "vulture funds" from buying in bulk then reselling properties at higher prices; an eviction ban on vulnerable tenants until 2030; and a new tax on seasonal rentals.
But Spain's Congress on Friday rejected those measures, heightening speculation that Mr Sánchez, who does not have a congressional majority, may call an early general election.
Demonstrators say they will continue protesting until housing measures are voted through. (Reuters: Susana Vera)
Madrid's tent encampment shows no sign of packing up.
Elsewhere, more tent cities are popping up across Spain — in Barcelona, Seville and even the tourist mecca of Palma de Mallorca, in the Balearic Islands.
A tent at a Canary Islands protest bears a sign that reads: "Your Airbnb was my house." (Reuters: Borja Suarez)
In Madrid, the tenants' union said mass protests would go ahead on Saturday, local time, while crowds had already met outside Spain's assembly chanting "your profits, our misery", according to Reuters.
"There are years when nothing happens, and weeks when history is made. This could be one of them," the union said in a statement.
From her hospital bed, Maricarmen continued to champion those who had supported her.
"I have fought so that others can learn to fight for what's theirs," she said.
It is a fight symbolic of the slogan some have used in the days since the pensioner's eviction.
A slogan that hints this fight is anything but over.
"Until the end comrades, as Maricarmen has taught us."