The Pensioner Whose Eviction Brought Down Spain’s Housing Truce Has Died
María del Carmen Abascal, known as Maricarmen, has died in hospital at 87, a fortnight after being carried on a stretcher from the Madrid flat she had lived in for more than seventy years while police teargassed protesters outside. Her landlord had sought to raise her rent from €500 a month to €2,650.
Her lawyer Beatriz Duro did not give a cause of death, saying the case “leaves us the image of the shameful violence of these types of evictions and the impact they can have on people’s health”. The Madrid Tenants’ Union said she died reportedly hours before she was due to sign a new lease: “Although a historic agreement was reached that would have allowed her to return home, this solution came too late. It was an entirely avoidable situation following a harrowing ordeal.” She used a wheelchair, had worked as a secretary for a pharmaceutical company board, and both her parents died in that flat. Pedro Sánchez wrote: “All my love to Maricarmen’s family and loved ones. A hug as well to all of us who feel this loss as our own today.” Protesters outside the Spanish parliament chanted “Maricarmen lives, the fight goes on!” and those camped in Puerta del Sol held a minute’s silence. The politics had already moved: Sánchez called a snap general election on Monday, for November, after right-wing and far-right parties voted down two emergency housing decrees. The numbers behind the anger will be familiar to a British reader. Spanish rents have roughly doubled in a decade and house prices are up about 63%; the government says 26% of Spanish renters spend an average of 40% of their income on rent and utilities, against a European Union average of 18%.