Friends and neighbors remember Maricarmen on her street in Madrid a month after her death

This Saturday afternoon, family, friends and neighbors remembered Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman who died a month ago in the hospital after being evicted from her home on Sainz de Baranda Street in Madrid, where she lived most of her life and to which she ultimately never returned.

Purple and yellow chrysanthemums next to a banner that reads "Maricarmen we do not forget you" were seen this afternoon at the neighborhood event held at number 46 of this street in the Retiro neighborhood, the day that marks one month since the death of this woman, who became a symbol of the fight for housing.

The spokesperson of the PSOE in the Madrid City Council, Reyes Maroto, and the president of the PSOE of Madrid, Paca Sauquillo, were some of the dozens of attendees who have demanded this Saturday that there be "not one more Maricarmen", the motto of one of the banners present at the event.

Organized by the Tenants' Union, the Regional Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Madrid and the Retiro Norte Neighborhood Association, the tribute also included the presence of Maricarmen's cousin, Vicente Losada, with friends and neighbors of this woman, to whom they wanted to pay "a small tribute."

Some of them have remembered their time in the neighborhood during the 71 years they lived there, while others have claimed the right to housing and have criticized "the lack of scruples" of the system.

Maricarmen died on October 7 in the hospital, 14 days after she was evicted from the apartment where she had lived for 71 years, an episode that ignited protests in favor of the right to decent housing in Spain.

FOUR EVICTION ATTEMPTS

Her fight, together with the Tenants' Union, to not be expelled from her rental apartment, strengthened the protests that led to a camp in the central Puerta del Sol in Madrid - which was finally dissolved days ago - and led the Government to approve two decrees, which were however repealed by Congress, a situation that precipitated the electoral advance.

Maricarmen had an old rental contract, originally signed by her father and later subrogated to her mother, and Urba Gestión, after acquiring the apartment, considered that it was extinguished and set a new rent that this woman could not pay.

Her image of being taken out of her house on a stretcher and taken to the Gregorio Marañón hospital spurred the protests and, in the midst of the mobilizations, the ownership of the apartment ended up reaching an agreement for Maricarmen to return home with a price that did not exceed 30% of her net income, although in the end she did not return to it because she died a few days later in the hospital.