Maricarmen: Eviction of elderly woman in Madrid sparks social and political outrage

Maricarmen Abascal is 87 years old and for the last 71 years she had lived in the same apartment in Madrid’s central Retiro neighborhood. On Wednesday, September 23, 2026, she was taken out on a stretcher after the police carried out her eviction on their fourth attempt. Hundreds of people were waiting for her outside. For months neighbors, activists and cultural figures had been trying to prevent her from losing a home that has been part of her entire life. Maricarmen spent her first night outside her home at Gregorio Marañón Hospital, where she is being treated for exhaustion, stress and anxiety produced by recent events.

Her story has sparked outrage both in the political sphere and in society, touching a chord among many Spaniards struggling to find housing in an increasingly unaffordable market. There are an average of three evictions a day in the Madrid region, but this one has become the symbol of a movement to defend the right to housing.

Thousands of people, including numerous youths, protested in Madrid in a spontaneous demonstration that began in front of a controversial luxury penthouse that the Madrid regional government, led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso of the conservative People’s Party (PP), recently purchased for unclear purposes.

The protest attracted 10,000 people, according to the central government, and grew in size throughout the day, forcing the police to cut off General Martínez Campos Street. Dozens of officers with riot gear watched the scene unfold as protesters cried out “Ayuso’s penthouse for Maricarmen!” and “Shame! Shame!”

Emilio Díaz, a 90-year-old pensioner watching on the sidelines, expressed satisfaction at what he was seeing. “I’m surprised this hasn’t happened earlier,” he said, noting that “young people are responding. Up until now it was like they didn’t exist.”

Rodrigo, a college student who declined to give out his last name, said the protest was justified. “Housing is a right, not an asset,” he said. Marina Martín, a 25-year-old nurse, added that “it is impossible to buy a home, and renting is really tough. All your money goes into paying rent and there’s barely anything left for other expenses.”

An expanding movement

The Madrid protest was the epicenter of a broader campaign that is extending throughout Spain. The platform #Niundesahuciomás (Not One More Eviction) called simultaneous protests in Ávila, Barcelona, Cádiz, Oviedo, Sevilla and Valencia.

The issue even made its way to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, of the Socialist Party, called the eviction “a social tragedy that we cannot accept as a country.” He placed the blame on the local and regional governments of Madrid, governed by the PP.

Inside Spain’s Congress of Deputies, Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez García said that the eviction “evidences the consequences of savage speculation and of rolling out the red carpet to the vultures and the speculators.”

The dispute stems from a rent-capped lease contract signed by Maricarmen’s father in 1956. The lease later passed to her mother and, after her mother’s death, to Maricarmen. For years she continued to pay rent every month, but the current owner, an investment firm named Urbagestión, sought to terminate the contract after raising her rent from €500 ($572) to €2,650. It later lowered it to €1,650, but Maricarmen still could not afford it with her monthly pension of €1,350. Maricarmen won her case in court, but an appeals judge overturned that ruling and the Supreme Court ultimately sided with the owners.

The company also rejected a last-minute offer by a well-known writer (who requested to remain anonymous) to pay Maricarmen’s new rent for the rest of her life. And the Housing Minister said it tried to purchase the apartment, but that their offer was refused. “They want to throw her out, that’s all,” said a ministry source. “They don’t want to hear about solutions.”

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