How one woman’s eviction set off protests and new elections in Spain

Over the past month, Spain’s political scene has been rocked by a housing crisis. Mass protests erupted across the country with a general strike called for Nov. 11. President Pedro Sanchez has called snap elections at the end of the month.

The catalyst for this wave of protest was the eviction of an 87-year old woman named Maricarmen Abascal.

Maricarmen, who’s become known throughout Spain by her first name, had lived in her Madrid apartment for decades. Then, an investment firm bought her house and more than tripled her rent to a figure higher than her monthly pension. After multiple attempts, the firm succeeded in getting her evicted on Sept. 23, despite protesters who attempted to block the path. Paramedics carried the wheelchair-bound woman out on a stretcher and took her to the hospital.

The reaction from the public was swift and fierce.

“That sparked a massive protest, because if they can take away your house, when you are paying, when you are an 87-year-old woman that is incredibly ill, and you've been in that house for 71 years, they can evict anyone,” said Nacho Juarez.

He was among the ten of thousands of people that took to the streets of Madrid to protest what happened to Maricarmen and Spain’s housing situation more broadly. In the following days an encampment began to form in Puerta del Sol, a busy plaza in the center of Madrid.

From the hospital, Maricarmen spurred on protesters, encouraging them to fight for housing protections.

“She wanted to be a champion of this movement,” Juarez said. “She would speak like, ‘I am famous because I am so old and so ill. But I am just one of many. Do not forget about the others.’”

Juarez referred to Maricarmen in the past tense because just two weeks after her eviction, she died. The official cause of death hasn’t been released, but many protesters blame the systems that led to her losing her home.

Just outside the encampment, people created a memorial to Maricarmen, leaving messages, drawing portraits and lighting candles in her honor.

Political ramifications

Maricarmen’s situation is emblematic of a broader problem. Spanish rents have nearly doubled in the last decade. And Spanish salaries have not.

In the aftermath of her eviction, Spain’s center-left president, Pedro Sanchez tried to pass housing reforms with the goal to, in his words “bring order and humanity” to the market.

The measures would have created new renter protections and limited housing speculation, but right-wing parties in Spain’s Congress voted them down. Now Sanchez has called for new elections, hoping that the public’s focus on the housing crisis will keep his left-leaning coalition in power.

However, the country’s conservatives say the answer isn’t regulation, but more housing supply. They also accuse the left of politicizing Maricarmen’s death.

The elections have been making 18-year-old Chiara Nicotra, who stayed at the Puerta del Sol encampment, anxious. In an interview in Spanish, she said she’s seen a huge surge in fascism, and increasingly more people aligning with the political right.

On the other hand, she said staying at the encampment showed her there are more people than she originally thought who care about housing as a human right.

In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, police in Madrid cleared the encampment in Puerta del Sol, according to the newspaper El País.

Protesters occupied the space for more than a month. The main organizing groups started their withdrawal in the previous days, saying they planned to take their movement to Madrid’s neighborhoods, preparing for the general strike.

After that, on Nov. 29, Spanish voters will decide who they think is best suited to lead the country — and keep a roof over their heads.