Urbagestión's eviction of Maricarmen Abascal is a crime of greed
By Maya Ellison · Reporting from Detroit ·
An investment fund's brutal eviction of an 87-year-old woman has sparked mass protests in Spain, exposing a system that treats homes as assets rather than human rights.
When the state uses a stretcher to remove an 87-year-old woman from her home, it is not "enforcing a contract." It is an act of state-sponsored violence. Maricarmen Abascal is a wheelchair user. She lived in her Madrid apartment for decades. Police broke down her door and carried her out. This was not a failure of the law. It was the law working exactly as intended for the people who own the ledger. Urbagestión, the investment fund that owns the building, did not just want the apartment. They wanted to erase a human being to maximize a profit margin.
The brutality of the ledger
The numbers in this case tell a story of predatory greed. According to People.com, Urbagestión increased Abascal's rent by 275 percent. Her monthly pension is only €1,350. No one can survive that math.
The fund did not care about the math of a human life. They cared about the math of an asset. Abascal fought the eviction for years. She had a lower court ruling in her favor, but the Supreme Court overturned it.
The eviction itself was a horror show. NBC News reports that Abascal was given 30 minutes to pack. Police then removed her on a stretcher and drove her away in an ambulance. Her lawyer, Beatriz Duro, called the force used "completely disproportionate and unnecessary." Abascal described the experience as living with a machete at the back of her neck.
The machinery of displacement
This is the Foreclosure Crisis all over again. The mechanism is the same. Financial institutions treat housing as a speculative asset for profit rather than a human right. They displace the vulnerable to serve concentrated capital. In 2010, we saw this in the U.S. when banks dumped families onto the street to clean up their balance sheets. Now, Urbagestión is doing it in Madrid.
We have seen this pattern before. It mirrors the Spanish mortgage crisis. During that time, the state failed to protect residents from aggressive bank-led evictions. We also saw it during Airbnb's expansion in European cities. Long-term homes were turned into short-term tourist rentals. This drove up prices and pushed out the people who actually lived there.
The result is a hollowed-out city. Public rental housing in Spain represents less than 2 percent of the supply. The European Union average is 8 percent. Spain ranks near the bottom of OECD countries for public housing. This is not an accident. It is the result of a long record of selling public homes into private ownership.
The lie of the legal defense
The defenders of this system will tell you that the law is the law. Urbagestión argued that Abascal’s retention of the apartment was invalid. They claimed the contract’s timing was no longer applicable. They believe a piece of paper outweighs decades of residency.
Madrid mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida claimed the city offered Abascal a residential facility. She rejected it. The mayor uses this to frame her as stubborn. But a residential facility is not a home. It is a warehouse for the elderly. To suggest that a woman should trade her life's history for a bed in a facility is an insult.
Legality is not a proxy for morality. When a fund refuses to sign a new lease even after an anonymous person offered to cover the rent, the goal is not "payment." The goal is removal. They want the space clear for a higher-paying tenant or a luxury conversion. As Irene Hernández López, a 31-year-old engineer, told NBC News, housing has become a product that people do business with.
The price of inaction
The public is finally waking up to the scam. Thousands of people marched in Madrid. Government authorities estimated 25,000 people, but organizers say 300,000 took to the streets. Protesters carried banners warning, "You could be the next Maricarmen."
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the eviction a "social tragedy." His government is now proposing the "Maricarmen decree." This plan would restrict evictions and allow the automatic renewal of rental contracts. But Sánchez leads a minority coalition. He lacks a majority in parliament.
The real estate lobbies and conservative regional governments will try to kill this decree. They have done it before. A similar housing bill was defeated earlier this year. They will argue that rent controls hurt the market. They will say that property rights are sacred. They will ignore the fact that for Maricarmen Abascal, the "market" looked like a police officer breaking down her door.
Urbagestión and the Spanish state owe Maricarmen Abascal more than an apology. They owe her a home and a guarantee that no other pensioner will be treated like a line item on a spreadsheet. Justice requires a total end to the commodification of shelter. We must stop treating the roof over a person's head as a speculative tool for vulture funds. If the "Maricarmen decree" is watered down by political cowardice, it will be another betrayal. The only solution is to move housing out of the hands of investment funds and back into the hands of the people. Until we regulate the market to prioritize homes over assets, the stretcher is always waiting.
Sources
- NBC News: Anger grows across Spain after elderly woman evicted from her home of 70 years
- People.com: 87-Year-Old Woman Evicted from Her Home of 71 Years: ‘I Don’t Want to Leave’
- CNA: Thousands march in Madrid to protest Spain's housing crisis after eviction of 87-year-old woman
- Euronews: Protests erupt in Granada after eviction of 87-year-old woman in Madrid
- France 24: Thousands march in Madrid to protest eviction of 87-year-old woman