Spain agrees housing measures after eviction of 87-year-old pensioner sparks protests

Spain's coalition government on Tuesday said it has agreed new measures to tackle the country's housing crisis after the forceful removal of an 87-year-old pensioner from her apartment in Madrid last week, sparked nationwide solidarity protests.

Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said the housing legislation includes a ban on evictions until 2030, tighter rules for short-term rentals and a two-year extension for existing leases.

"It's ​time ​to intervene in the speculative housing market and ​begin to rebalance the scales between ⁠citizens ​and vulture funds," ​Garcia, who belongs ​to the ‌leftist government's junior coalition partner Sumar, ​wrote ⁠in a post on ⁠X.

Legislation still needs to pass through parliament

The Spanish government, led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his ministers, approved the measures after a meeting.

But since Sanchez leads a minority government, he is still dependent on votes from a number of other parties in parliament before the bill is set in law.

Sanchez's ruling Socialists were engaged in talks with coalition partners Sumar and others up to Tuesday.

Socialist Housing Minister Isabel Rodriguez is scheduled to address a press conference later on Tuesday.

A case that triggered mass protests in Spain

Images and videos last week that showed Maria del Carmen Abascal — known by her nickname Maricarmen — escorted out of her apartment by riot police officers touched a nerve among Spaniards who've long called for a solution to the housing crisis in the country.

Maricarmen's father had first rented the property in 1956 in Madrid's Retiro neighborhood and she continued as the tenant after her parents died.

Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that Maricarmen had rented the apartment from a private landlord until 2018, after which a real estate company acquired the property and took over its management.

According to the newspaper, the legal dispute between Maricarmen and the real estate company lasted eight years and their latest attempt to evict her from the apartment marked their fourth attempt to do so.

The issue placed Spain's housing market in the spotlight where many long-term tenants have been priced out of their apartments due to an affordability crisis and a shortage of homes in Europe's fourth-largest economy.

Protesters rallied around Maricarmen's cause, especially because pictures of her being taken out of her apartment building and into an ambulance were vividly present across social media.

She is a wheelchair user too.

People then hit the streets of Madrid in the thousands on Saturday, with many having ended their protest by setting up tents in Madrid's historic Puerta del Sol plaza at the end of the night.

More people, including multigenerational families, joined Sunday.

Maricarmen to return home because of 'social mobilization,' lawyer says

Maricarmen's lawyer on Monday said that she was going to be able to return home, calling the victory a "result of the social mobilization."

"If this agreement we have reached is signed, it will obviously be a better and happier outcome for everyone," Abascal's lawyer Beatriz Duro told reporters.

"Hopefully this agreement, this different way of ending this type of situation, which is unfortunately experienced every day in this country, helps to change the paradigm when it comes to housing in general," Duro said.

Edited by: Elizabeth Schumacher