Maricarmen Abascal died on Wednesday at Hospital Gregorio Marañón in Madrid, days after being evicted from the home she had lived in for seven decades. She was 87. The woman who left that flat on a stretcher on 23 September never made it back, despite an agreement that supporters say came too late.
Her name had already become a rallying point for housing-rights campaigners, and her death gives fresh weight to a case that has moved from one building in Retiro into the center of Spain’s political debate. Abascal had lived since she was 17 in the home on calle Alcalde Sáinz de Baranda, where she faced a demand for a much higher rent after Urbagestión took ownership in 2018.
The eviction itself became a public scene. Hundreds of people gathered outside the building from dawn on 23 September in an attempt to stop it, but the Policía Nacional carried it out and incidents were reported. In the weeks that followed, her health worsened. Supporters said the situation became especially delicate in the last two weeks of her life, and from the hospital she sent messages thanking them and urging them to keep mobilizing.
That mobilization did not stop with her death. The Sindicato de Inquilinas said the agreement that would have allowed her to return home arrived “too late” and described what happened as “an absolutely avoidable situation after a torturous process.” It also promised: “We will keep fighting for you, for everyone, as you always wanted.”
The case has already pushed wider political moves. The Government responded with two housing decrees, but the Congreso de los Diputados did not validate them last Friday. Pedro Sánchez then called early general elections for 29 November, and the Consejo de Ministros approved the decrees again this past Tuesday. The Sindicato de Inquilinas has also backed an encampment in Puerta de Sol that remains tied to the same housing fight.
Abascal’s death closes one chapter, but it also sharpens the question at the center of the dispute: whether Spain’s housing system can protect vulnerable tenants before the stretcher is already at the door.
