Spain’s housing crisis deepens and takes to the streets
The eviction of an 87-year-old tenant who had lived in the same Madrid apartment for 70 years turned Puerta del Sol into a camp, pitted the city hall run by the Popular Party against the central government, and pushed two housing decrees toward a vote in Congress on October 2, 2026.
On the morning of September 23, 2026, police broke down the door of an apartment in Madrid’s Retiro district and carried out an 87-year-old resident on a stretcher. Maria del Carmen Abascal had lived in the same building for 70 years. The Urbagestión fund had multiplied her rent fivefold, from €500 to €2,650 a month, and the Madrid Tenants’ Union — the organization that coordinates tenants against evictions in the Spanish capital — turned the case into a national symbol.
The symbol worked. On Saturday, September 26, 2026, tens of thousands of people marched in Madrid against the housing crisis. The Government Delegation, the body representing the Spanish central government in the capital, counted 25,000 protesters; the Tenants’ Union, 300,000, according to the French news agency France-Presse. At the end of the rally, part of the crowd occupied Puerta del Sol and set up a camp that remains in the square. There were just over 100 tents on Saturday; roughly 300 on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, with several thousand people gathering in the evening; about 1,000 campers in 500 tents in the early hours of Wednesday, September 30, 2026, the fourth night of the occupation. The campers’ decision is to stay in the square at least until Friday, October 2, 2026.
The rent went from €500 to €2,650 a month — and an 87-year-old resident left her home on a stretcher.
Maricarmen, as the neighbors call her, is going back home. The deal reached after the eviction provides for an eight-year contract with rent capped at 30% of her net income. The Tenants’ Union called the outcome a historic victory. The victory is individual and contractual, and that is precisely what gave it political force: a signed document proves that the amount charged before was reversible.
The institutional standoff
The camp has split the institutions that govern Madrid. The city hall, led by José Luis Martínez-Almeida, and the regional government of the Community of Madrid, headed by Isabel Díaz Ayuso — both run by the Popular Party (PP) — demanded that the Government Delegation immediately dissolve the gathering, threatened to take the matter to court, and ordered the closure of the Sol train station. The Delegation replied that the right of assembly protects the campers and kept the permit in place. Far-right groups began organizing on social media to storm the camp, prompting protesters to set up their own vigil shifts.
The confrontation has a date and a political address. Spain holds a general election in 2027, and housing has become the battleground where the regional PP and the central government measure their strength before the capital’s electorate. The city hall calling for dissolution governs the city where the eviction took place; the central government invoking the right of assembly is the one backing in Congress the decrees that promise to prevent the next eviction.
The decrees and Friday
On Tuesday, September 29, 2026, the Council of Ministers approved two housing decree-laws that go to a ratification vote in the Congress’s extraordinary plenary session this Friday, October 2, 2026. The package provides for automatic renewal of rental contracts, a two-year extension for contracts expiring before 2028, a 2% cap on annual rent increases, regulation of seasonal and per-room rentals, a suspension of evictions of vulnerable families until December 31, 2030, a super-reduced 4% value-added tax (VAT) rate for protected housing, and guarantee lines from the Official Credit Institute (ICO), Spain’s public development bank. The vote is one of ratification and the text can still change; automatic renewal is the most contested point of the two decrees.
The underlying size of the crisis has been measured by the central bank. The Bank of Spain acknowledges a deficit of 750,000 homes — the gap between the households created since 2021 and the housing units completed in that period, according to the institution’s annual report — and estimates that only 10% to 15% of renter households have the savings and income to take on a mortgage without committing more than 35% of their earnings. The official accounting describes a market where buying is out of reach for most renters and rent climbs unchecked for those who cannot buy.
An eviction that was supposed to end a contract opened the week in which Spain decides what a contract can contain. Maricarmen has a signed agreement, Puerta del Sol has 1,000 campers, and Congress has two decrees on the table. If ratification passes on October 2, 2026, automatic renewal turns what her case won by exception into a general rule. If the vote stalls, the square has already shown that eviction is no longer a private procedure between a fund and a tenant — it has become the political fact occupying the center of Madrid.