Evicted 87-year-old Spanish pensioner to return home after deal

Eviction deal and social mobilization

A Madrid pensioner whose eviction sparked nationwide protests that have piled pressure on the government to resolve Spain's housing crisis can return home after a deal with the property's owners, her lawyer said on Monday. Unaffordable housing has been a running sore for years in Spain, but the outcry over last Wednesday's eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal thrust the crisis to the forefront of the political debate. Demonstrators have set up roughly 100 tents in Madrid's emblematic Puerta del Sol square since Saturday night, while tens of thousands of people have protested across the country.

“If this agreement we have reached is signed, it will obviously be a better and happier outcome for everyone,” Abascal's lawyer Beatriz Duro told reporters, calling it “a result of the social mobilisation”. “Hopefully this agreement, this different way of ending this type of situation, which unfortunately are experienced every day in this country, helps to change the paradigm when it comes to housing in general,” Duro said. Abascal, who uses a wheelchair, was removed on a stretcher from the Madrid home where she had lived for 70 years and became a symbol of the protest against runaway housing prices and a lack of tenant protections.

She had always paid her rent, but the real estate firm that owned her apartment hiked the monthly rent by 275 percent to 2,650 euros ($3,000), supporters say. Duro said there had been “goodwill from both parties” and that the rent would be “similar to what she had been paying”. Abascal will be able to return to her apartment in Madrid's upmarket Retiro neighbourhood after leaving hospital, where she is being treated for exhaustion, added Duro, who said the aim was to “accelerate the procedures”.

Political pressure and protests

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's government is seeking agreement on a new housing package to present to cabinet on Tuesday to placate the popular anger. “We are living through a serious situation in Spain right now,” said Carlota, a 29-year-old protester who spent Sunday night in Sol, calling for “an end to putting capital and investment funds before people”. In Barcelona, which has seen several demonstrations in recent years linking housing costs to overtourism, around 2,000 protesters gathered on Monday night to demand ambitious measures during a visit by Sanchez.

“We have come here to tell him (Sanchez) that we don't want a sham decree,” Carme Arcarazo, a spokeswoman for the Catalan Tenants' Union, told reporters, including AFP. “We don't want sticking plasters... we want decent housing so that what happened to Maricarmen doesn't happen again,” said Arcarazo, demanding a rent freeze, indefinite contracts and anti-eviction measures. The Socialists are holding talks with far-left junior coalition partners Sumar and an array of other parties to pass a law. But the coalition lacks a majority in parliament, making the success of any such initiative unclear, while a similar housing bill was defeated earlier this year.

Broader housing market data

Over the past decade, the average rental price per square metre in Spain has almost doubled, reaching 15.10 euros per square metre in August, according to real estate portal Idealista. For buyers, it now stands at 2,355 euros, an increase of more than 50 percent over the same period, according to official figures. “It's a jungle, it's impossible to become fully independent without flat-sharing,” Laura Requena, a 32-year-old teacher, told AFP at the Barcelona protest. “We can't make ends meet while having to pay a rent,” she added.

The Bank of Spain estimates the country of around 50 million people is short of 700,000 homes, based on the gap between demand and new construction. Spain has little public housing, while rents have been driven up by increased demand, including from tourism and population growth linked to immigration, analysts say.