Eviction of an Elderly Woman Sparks Outrage Among Spaniards.. Thousands Protest Housing Crisis

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Tens of thousands took to the streets of the Spanish capital, Madrid, on Saturday, protesting the worsening housing crisis and demanding enhanced tenant protections, stricter anti-fraud regulations, and a ban on evictions without providing alternative housing.

The protests came after a widely publicized eviction on Wednesday of an 87-year-old woman from her apartment, where she had lived for decades, after police broke down her door. She was carried out of her home in the upscale Retiro neighborhood on a stretcher, amid chants and sympathy from demonstrators and supporters as she was taken to an ambulance, according to AFP.

Government authorities estimated the number of participants at around 25,000, while protest organizers claimed that 300,000 people took part. Maria del Carmen Abascal, the woman who sparked the protests, urged Spaniards to join the demonstrations in a video message posted online hours before the rally.

From the hospital, where she is receiving treatment for exhaustion since her eviction, she said: 'I want what happened to me to serve as a lesson to prevent it from happening to others.'

In addition, protesters set up tents during their sit-in to protest against eviction operations and the housing crisis, in front of the Madrid regional government headquarters in Puerta del Sol square in the Spanish capital, Madrid. One of the banners reads: "Affordable housing."

The protester Dora Garcia, a 55-year-old nurse, said: "We are here because housing is a problem that has begun to affect the entire community, across all ages and classes. We cannot continue to endure this situation. Housing is a right, and we do not own it."

Spanish media reported that Maria Abascal's father rented the apartment for the first time in 1956, before she continued to rent it after her parents' death, during a period when rents were subject to a price ceiling system.

The ownership of the building changed in 2018, and Abascal was offered the opportunity to buy the apartment, but she was unable to afford it, according to the Madrid Tenants' Union, which organized the protest on Saturday.

The union stated that the company "Urbachstion," an investment fund that later purchased the apartment, raised the monthly rent from 500 euros to 2,650 euros, before later reducing it to 1,650 euros, an amount that Abascal could not afford from her pension.

The courts had previously blocked three attempts to evict her, but the case received extensive media coverage, turning Abascal into a symbol of protest against the housing crisis in Spain.

The protests also come at a time when Spain is facing a housing shortage, particularly in major cities, amid rising housing and rental costs, with the Bank of Spain estimating that the country suffered from a shortage of about 550,000 homes last year, with Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia accounting for a large share of this deficit.