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A large crowd gathered during the demonstration calling for a reduction in housing rents in Madrid. Alamy
Affordable Housing
Over 70,000 take to the streets in Spain to protest housing crisis
The government introduced the measures after nationwide protests following the eviction on a stretcher of an 87-year-old woman.
TENS OF THOUSANDS of protesters have descended on Madrid and other cities in Spain to demand affordable housing.
This comes after Spain’s parliament on Friday rejected two relief measures aimed at tackling a housing crisis and improving protections for tenants.
The government introduced the measures after nationwide protests following the eviction, on a stretcher, of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from a Madrid apartment she had occupied for around seven decades.
A decision late on Thursday by the Catalan separatist Junts party to oppose both measures deprived socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez’s coalition of a parliamentary majority.
The two votes are a heavy political blow to Sanchez and has renewed questions over whether his minority government can survive until the next scheduled general election in 2027.
After the vote, the leader of the main opposition conservative Popular Party (PP), Alberto Nunez Feijoo, urged Sanchez to “call elections as soon as possible”.
After eight years in power, Sanchez had the backing of “neither the streets nor parliament”, he added.
Recent opinion polls have generally placed the opposition Popular Party ahead of the Socialists.
The Tenants’ Union, which has been coordinating the protests, has called for demonstrations on Saturday in more than 50 cities.
“There is an irreparable disconnect between what the people want and what the parties vote for,” it said in a statement.
Authorities said 70,000 people participated, but the organisers put the figure at 500,000.
In Madrid, activists and protesters have been camping for about a week in Puerta del Sol, one of the capital’s main tourist squares.
Demonstrators set off from several locations around the city at noon before converging on Plaza de Cibeles in central Madrid.
The package of measures defeated on Friday included the automatic renewal of rental contracts when they expire, as well as measures aimed at restricting the eviction of vulnerable tenants.
They also targeted so-called vulture funds – investment firms that buy properties at low prices in pursuit of higher returns.
Call for general strike
“We are demanding a fundamental right,” said Javier, a 31-year-old solar panel installer. “Decent housing, stability and conditions allowing us to construct a decent life project.
“I spend half of my salary on a tiny room,” he added.
“What we are feeling in the streets is a new energy that we haven’t seen in a long time — an energy that is showing that eight days of people’s power can achieve more than eight years of progressive government,” Valeria Racu, one of the spokespeople of the Tenants’ Union organising the protest, said in a statement.
“Now begins real politics – politics which has always belonged to the people and which will return once and for all to the streets,” she added.
She repeated her union’s call for a general strike.
Housing has for years been a top concern for Spaniards as supply falls short of demand, with rents and house prices soaring as elsewhere in the European Union.
Average rents in Spain have almost doubled over the past decade, while asking prices for homes have risen by about 90%, according to real estate website Idealista.
Abascal’s eviction catalysed long-running anger about runaway housing costs.
She was forced to leave the Madrid flat where she had lived after it was acquired by an investment company that sought to increase her rent by 275%, according to housing campaigners.
The backlash led the property’s new owners to reach a deal allowing her to return to the flat at a low rent.
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