What to know about Spain’s housing protests sparked by the eviction of the 87-year-old Maricarmen

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Public outrage over the eviction of an 87-year-old woman has put Spain’s progressive government under immense pressure to tackle the nation’s entrenched housing cost crisis.

Around a thousand protestors have spent the past week camped out in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, the capital’s most popular public space, after the elderly María del Carmen Abascal was evicted from her home of seven decades in downtown Madrid on Sept. 23. The protestors say they won’t leave until the government takes real steps to protect tenants.

The government led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who faces a national election next year, has pushed forward a package of emergency measures to respond to the housing crunch. Lawmakers plan to vote Friday on the measures in Parliament, where the Socialist-led minority coalition will need the backing of several smaller parties to get them over the line. That is not guaranteed.

Here is what you need to know.

Spain is hard hit due to small rental market

The housing crunch has been simmering for years in Spain, eating into household budgets and angering voters. While many countries have similar circumstances, Spain’s poorest and its young are being particularly hard hit because they can’t afford to purchase a home and are being squeezed by the country’s small stock of rental properties.

The average rent for Spain has almost doubled in the last 10 years. The price per square meter has risen from 8.20 euros (now $9.30) in 2016 to 15.1 euros ($17.15) this year, according to the real estate website Idealista.

Spain’s government said that 26% of Spaniards who rent spend an average of 40% of their income on rent and utilities, compared to the EU average of 18% of renters who do so.

Ignasi Martí, head of the Dignified Housing Observatory at the Esade business school, said that the government’s proposed measures would make it harder to evict the most vulnerable renters. But the real solution would be to build more subsidized housing, which could take years and major investment, he said.

Spain ranks near the bottom of countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development for government-owned rental properties, which represent less than 2% of its available stock. The European Union average is 8%.

“I think (the measures) are a putting a patch on the problem, and we need patches for starters,” Martí told The Associated Press. “But eventually we need to cure the patient. And with a patch, with a bandage, we won’t do that.”

Maricarmen set the spark

Tens of thousands of people periodically march in major cities demanding action from lawmakers and blaming real estate speculators as well as tourist apartment platforms like Airbnb for rising rents.

But a new wave of indignation swept Spain when Abascal, who uses a wheelchair, was carried on a stretcher from her apartment after police cordoned off the street. Televised images of the eviction prompted thousands of people to protest in Madrid and other cities across the southern European country.

“I haven’t managed to defend my home, but I have fought so that others can learn to fight for what’s theirs,” Abascal said in a video recorded from a hospital bed after the eviction.

The Spanish real estate company which had insisted on evicting her in order to rent the property at a much higher price ended up reaching an agreement for her to return to the apartment, her lawyer said, adding Abascal was “happy.” She has yet to be discharged from the hospital.

Even with a satisfying resolution for “Maricarmen,” as Abascal is now widely known, she remains the embodiment of the struggle against suffocating rental costs. Protesters have carried signs with slogans such as “Not even one more Maricarmen!” and demonstrations have been cropping up in cities across the country.

Spain takes aim at speculators and aims to empower tenants

Spain’s government is hoping that its newly presented housing measures will appease the protestors and sway public opinion. It split the measures into two decrees, issuing the first on Sept. 30. Parliament has 30 days to ratify it.

It would:

1. Stop so-called “vulture funds” from speculating with real estate by prohibiting the purchase of properties for under 70% of their estimated value through 2028. The goal is to stop large real estate owners from buying properties in bulk and then reselling them at much higher prices.

2. Extend through 2030 protection for vulnerable renters, prohibiting the eviction of tenants who have been deemed by social services to be in precarious financial standing and with no other home to move to.

3. Impose tighter regulation on short-term leases. Rental contracts between one and 12 months would have to be accompanied by proof that the tenant only needs to reside in the locale for less than a year, for example, to study at a university.

4. Establish various tax incentives to encourage renting properties and real estate construction.

A second decree to indefinitely extend leases is in trouble

The government issued a second decree on Thursday to make the standard five-year residential lease roll over automatically when it is set to expire.

If a property owner wishes to break the contract unilaterally, they would have to compensate the tenant by paying them the equivalent of a year’s rent. The decree includes an exemption for owners if they can prove either they or a close relative need to move into the property.

This second decree, however, looks to be in serious trouble of being rejected. One key party, the center-right Basque party PNV, has said it won’t support it.

Unclear whether the measures

will pass or be enough to quell outrage

The latter decree to extend leases indefinitely is one of the main demands of the organizers of the encampment protest, the renters association Sindicato de Inquilinas.

So there is no guarantee that the camp-in protest situated less than a kilometer away from the parliament is going to dissolve soon.