Evicted from the Home of Seventy Years: The Death of María Carmen Abáscal and Spain's Housing Protest Wave

María Carmen Abáscal, 87, died after being evicted from the home she had lived in for seventy years. Her ordeal has become the iconic "cause symbol" of Spain's housing crisis, and the wave of anger and protests it has triggered is spreading nationwide.

A report filed by France 24 correspondent Sarah Morris from Madrid described how the eviction ignited widespread discontent. Abáscal had lived in that home for seven decades; her passing elevated what had originally been an individual housing dispute into a political issue commanding national attention.

The reason her ordeal has struck a collective chord is precisely because it touches on far more than the twilight years of a single elderly person — the unaffordable reality of housing has thus been given a human face, a name and a life cut short. According to France 24, the anger and protests surrounding the housing crisis continue to spread across Spain.

However, existing reports have not been able to clearly present the concrete responses of the Spanish government and local authorities to this eviction and the protests it triggered; the time span between Abáscal's eviction and her death, as well as the specific cause of her passing, likewise remain unclear.