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If there’s one name on people’s lips in Spain this week, it’s Maricarmen. The 87-year-old’s eviction from her home sparked a huge wave of spontaneous solidarity in various cities, drawing attention to one of the most pressing issues facing the country: access to housing.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of people marched through Madrid to protest Maricarmen’s eviction. Some demonstrators camped overnight in Puerta del Sol, and more people joined on Sunday, including several generations of families, according to the Associated Press. Demonstrators are calling for stronger protections for tenants and a ban on evictions if there are no other homes nearby.
María del Carmen Abascal, known as Maricarmen, is a resident of Madrid’s El Retiro neighborhood, where until last Wednesday she lived in an apartment on Avenida Alcalde Sains de Barranda. Her lawyer, Beatriz Duro, told CNN that she had lived in the house for more than 70 years.
Her eviction, which shocked many, took place on Wednesday despite the efforts of dozens of people who had been waiting outside her home the night before to try to stop it.
Nearly 10,000 people gathered in the capital that afternoon to protest Maricarmen’s eviction and express frustration at the increasing difficulty of finding housing, according to Spanish government officials in Madrid.
These expressions of concern and solidarity protests were also held in other cities such as Barcelona, Seville and Valencia.
Abascal is currently hospitalized at Gregorio Maranhão Hospital, where he was carried away on a stretcher shortly after being evicted from his apartment. She plans to stay there for several days while awaiting medical tests, Duro said.
Abascal spoke to his supporters in a video after being taken to hospital on Friday, urging them to “keep fighting” for their homeland.
“I couldn’t protect my home, but I have fought so that others learn to fight for their homes,” she said. “The house was my life, and now I have to leave it behind. But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep fighting.”
“Fight,” she told her supporters. “I’m sending you all a big hug and thank you for everything you’ve done.”
Mr. Abascal has lived in the same location since 1956. It was in this apartment near El Retiro Park that she grew up and lived with her parents until she inherited a lease from them.
It was an old-style lease, and she paid about $568 (500 euros) a month. But everything changed in March 2018 when real estate company Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión took ownership of the apartment for $280,787 (€247,000).
Then her ordeal began. Shortly after, the new owners began demanding up to four times more rent, even though she was receiving a pension of only $1,478 (1,300 euros), the Madrid Tenants’ Union told CNN.
As a result, the real estate company filed a lawsuit in March 2020 seeking to terminate the lease, Duro said. Abascal won in the lower court, but the company appealed and a state court ruled in Abascal’s favor.
Faced with this situation, Mr. Duro filed a constitutional defense defense at the Constitutional Court and appealed to the Supreme Court, but both were rejected. At the same time, Ms. Urvajeción filed lawsuits to force the termination of her lease and regain ownership of her home, resulting in up to four eviction attempts.
In October 2025, Abascal’s lawyers halted the eviction for four months thanks to a provision in the law that allows this if the party seeking the eviction is a legal entity, Duro said.
When a second date was set for June 2026, evictions were halted for nearly a month because the tenants had no alternative housing. As a result, it was postponed again until July, but Duro appealed the decision again.
During this time, and until the eviction took place, Abascal’s support network made great efforts to negotiate with Urvageción in order to find a solution that would prevent this outcome. Among other things, Ms. Duro pointed out that mediation was carried out through the state housing agency, Casa 47, so that the apartment could be purchased and rented to her at a more reasonable price.
On the Tuesday before the eviction, an anonymous person offered to pay part of the rent. But the real estate company showed no interest in any of the proposed alternatives, her lawyer said.
CNN has reached out to Urbagestion Desarrollo e Inversión for comment, but has not yet received a response.
Given this situation and the fact that evictions have already taken place, Abascal’s prospects are not very promising. “The situation is hopeless,” Duro said. “She has no alternative housing. (..) She has not yet received any offer or alternative housing from any public agency.”
On Friday morning, the real estate company contacted Madrid’s Housing and Land Agency (EMVS) to request that the property be included in the ReViVa program, in which city hall takes vacant properties and introduces them to the rental market, and to offer them to Abascal “on affordable terms,” according to a City Hall report.
But the City Council rejected this possibility, saying the proposal was unfeasible because it did not meet the program’s legal requirements. However, the company offers EMVS rental brokerage services, allowing experts to act as intermediaries to negotiate between the company and tenants during a meeting scheduled for Monday.
Difficulties in accessing housing, whether buying or renting, is nothing new in Spain. Protests have intensified in recent years, increasing pressure on both local authorities and President Pedro Sánchez’s government.
This dissatisfaction is due to rising housing prices and is especially felt in large cities. For example, rents in Madrid have nearly doubled in 10 years, rising from $14.55 (€12.8) per square meter in August 2016 to $26.49 (€23.3) in August 2026, according to data from real estate website Idealista.
When it comes to home purchases, the price per square meter has increased by 227.9% in just 10 years, according to Idealista. This means that from $3,229 (€2,839) per square meter in August 2016 to $7,361 (€6,471) in August this year.
These prices are in stark contrast to the country’s average annual income of around $33,596 (€29,540) in 2024, according to data from the National Institute for Statistics.
In other words, based on these figures, a person who decides to rent a 50 square meter apartment in the capital will spend about $15,894 (€13,980) a year on housing, which is almost half of the average salary.
This financial burden impairs your ability to save and cover other expenses. UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme) estimates that less than 30% of income needs to be spent on rent for it to be considered affordable.
The Bank of Spain believes that the problem is largely due to a housing shortage of around 755,000 homes currently, which could reach 1 million by 2028.
Given the scale of this eviction, the political class cannot sit on the sidelines. This is not only because those defending Abascal directly criticized them, but also because the politicians themselves used this episode as a platform to defend themselves or attack others.
According to the Associated Press, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addressed Abascal directly at a Socialist Party rally in Madrid on Sunday: “Maricarmen, I have a message for you: The government is working around the clock to submit the Royal Decree on Housing next Tuesday, and I ask the parliamentary bodies to make a final effort to have it approved by Maricarmen’s National Assembly.”
Abascal had previously criticized Sanchez, blaming him for her ordeal.
“Isn’t he aware of the number of evictions every day?” she asked in an interview with Spanish state broadcaster RTVE the day before she was forcibly removed from her home. “Is he unaware or does he not want to notice?”
The Spanish government claims it tried to buy the house Abascal lived in through the Ministry of Housing and Casa 47 in order to provide him with affordable rent. At the same time, she has criticized local authorities for not doing anything to help her.
Madrid region President Isabel Díaz Ayuso handed responsibility back to the executive branch led by Sánchez on Thursday morning, saying the evictions were carried out by national police officers “under the control of the government” in accordance with a law that “gives us eight years to amend if this government and its coalition partners disagree.”
Meanwhile, members of the Smar party, which is a partner in the coalition government, are proposing to directly expropriate the houses in question. Specifically, both Yolanda Díaz, Second Vice-President of the Spanish government, and Pablo Bastinduy, Minister of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and the 2030 Agenda, are calling for the Royal Decree Law on Housing to be approved at the next Council of Ministers, freezing rent prices and halting evictions like the one that took place on Wednesday.
