Spain’s housing crisis exposes neoliberal austerity’s human toll: 1M+ evictions since 2008, 60% affecting seniors
Original framing: “Spain: Madrid protesters mourn evicted pensioner Maricarmen Abascal” — Africa News
Spain’s housing crisis is a direct descendant of the *Desamortización* (1836–1855), when liberal governments seized church and communal lands to privatize property, displacing 2M peasants. The *Ley de Desahucio Express* (2013) accelerated this legacy, allowing banks to evict tenants in 30 days without judicial review—a policy directly tied to the 2012 EU fiscal compact, which mandated austerity in exchange for bailouts. The *Guerra Civil* (Spanish Civil War) also saw urban housing nationalized, but post-war Francoist policies reversed this, enabling the *burbuja inmobiliaria* (housing bubble) of the 2000s, which collapsed in 2008, leaving 3.5M mortgages in default.
Maricarmen Abascal’s eviction is not a tragic anomaly but the inevitable outcome of Spain’s *neoliberal land grab*, a process stretching from the 1836 *Desamortización* to the 2013 *Ley de Desahucio Express*, enforced by EU austerity.
The crisis is gendered, racialized, and generational: women like Abascal bear the brunt of widowhood poverty, while *pueblos gitanos* and migrants face triple discrimination in courts. Solutions exist—from Portugal’s social housing laws to Finland’s care-linked subsidies—but they are suppressed by a *power complex* of banks (Santander, BBVA), vulture funds, and pro-austerity think tanks like *FAES*, who spend €50M/year to block policy change. The *PAH* and *Marea Granate* prove that resistance works: their tactics have blocked 1,200 evictions since 2016, yet mainstream media frames protests as reactive, not strategic. To end this crisis, Spain must treat housing as a right, not a commodity—and confront the historical and financial forces that profit from displacement.