Thousands of people demonstrate in Madrid to put an end to evictions

Madrid / BarcelonaThe eviction of Maricarmen Abascal has triggered a wave of indignation that was visible on Wednesday on the streets of Madrid, Barcelona, and various cities in the State, and has been repeated this Saturday in a demonstration in the center of the Spanish capital. Under the slogan "Not one more Maricarmen, thousands of people gathered at the Plaza del Sol, where the seat of the government of the Community of Madrid is located, to walk to the Madrid City Council and end at the Congress of Deputies. It is in the lower house where the Spanish government wants to approve the new housing decree that serves to avoid evictions like those of Maricarmen Abascal. However, at this time the Ministry of Housing is still negotiating the regulation with the investiture partners and also with its own coalition partner, Sumar. In fact, the party founded by Yolanda Díaz has threatened to skip the council of ministers meeting on Tuesday if this decree is not approved.

The pressure from the minority coalition partner, Sumar, coincides with the mobilizations that are being organized by civil society to protest against the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman whom a vulture fund kicked out of the apartment where she had lived all her life, and to demand measures to guarantee housing for everyone. The spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants' Union, Alicia del Río, has pointed directly to the coalition government and warned that it "makes no sense" if it does not approve the housing decree on Tuesday. "If it is not approved this Tuesday, this government that calls itself progressive makes no sense at all. The wave of indignation that has been unleashed will not stop," she maintained before starting the demonstration, where she also accused the Spanish government of using Maricarmen Abascal's case in a "partisan" way. Del Río also held the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso responsible for not having prevented this eviction.

This very Saturday, Maricarmen Abascal herself has demanded that the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, approve this decree on Tuesday to change "the unjust laws" that have allowed her eviction. "I want the unjust laws that have allowed my eviction to be changed," she requested through a video released by the Madrid Tenants' Union. Maricarmen Abascal has asked for this "first step" to end "this nonsense." "I want what happened to me to serve so that it does not happen to other people," she added, still from the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, where she was taken on the day of the eviction.

This Friday it emerged that the vulture fund Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión SL submitted a proposal to the Madrid City Council so that the woman could return to her apartment. However, the council rejected it because it "does not meet the legal requirements" and has called a meeting on Monday with the representatives of Maricarmen Abascal and the fund that owns the apartment to mediate. When the protesters passed in front of the Madrid City Council, they booed the mayor, José Luis Martínez Almeida.

Negotiation against the clock

While thousands of people were demonstrating through the streets of Madrid, the Spanish government continues to negotiate with its partners. And now it does so with the threat from Sumar not to appear at Tuesday's council of ministers if the housing decree is not approved. It would not be the first time, in any case, that Sumar stands up a council of ministers: it already did so in the month of March, delaying its start by more than two hours, due to discrepancies with the PSOE over the content of the anti-crisis decree following the war in Iran. The Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, is working against the clock to manage to get them all into the equation, although she wants to ensure that what is approved passes the filter of the Congress of Deputies.

"This country needs a great agreement on housing that prevents any more Maricarmens from being evicted from their homes and that protects the hundreds of thousands of people who do not make ends meet at the end of the month because of housing," Sumar has assured in a statement. In their view, the solutions involve "the protection of families against evictions and vulture funds, the regulation of speculative uses of housing such as tourist apartments and fraud in seasonal or room rentals, the recovery of Maricarmen's home and the automatic renewal of rental contracts". However, these demands must be married with those that Junts has put on the table to ensure that if a new housing decree-law is approved on Tuesday, the measures are validated in the Congress of Deputies.

As reported by ARA this Friday, the demands from Miriam Nogueras' party involve tax incentives for both tenants and landlords –such as a 15% deduction on personal income tax (IRPF) and tax exemptions for those who sell their property to the administration to increase public housing stock– as well as placing limitations on vulture funds, such as preventing them from purchasing real estate and prohibiting them from evicting vulnerable families from their properties. However, there is no consensus on the automatic renewal of leases, which Junts wants to be voluntary, and on generally preventing all evictions. Junts requests that in the case of "small landlords" –the fine print to define the term is being finalized– evictions should be allowed, and that the administration should take on the responsibility of providing housing alternatives. The Ministry of Housing guarantees that they are working on "structural" measures, different from those that have been rejected by Congress so far, in order to gather the necessary consensus from Podemos, EH Bildu, Sumar, and ERC to Junts and the PNV. The purple party, who were at the demonstration in Madrid this Saturday, are suspicious that the Spanish government might reach a deal on the decree with Junts.