Housing

The council approves a new law that expels residents and multiplies tourist apartment blocks.

Across Spain, we're facing an undeniable affordable housing crisis, where rent hikes consistently outstrip salary increases. More households than ever are struggling with housing costs, spending over 30% of our income on rent. In the whole of Madrid Centro, this is the case, yet national rent regulation laws aimed at high-tension areas are not enforced here as our regional right-wing government has opted out.

Margie came late to writing and, age 81, she’s at the peak of her career. “I don’t have many more years left, so I really want to enjoy being a successful writer for as long as I can.” However, Margie is facing a major setback to her ambitions as her flat has been purchased by a Galician vulture fund, who have asked her to leave by the end of the month.

Foreword: The building in which the oldest shoe shop in Lavapiés, Calzados Vinigon, was purchased by a vulture fund and, being unable to pay a higher rent, María Jesús has been forced to close permanently. What this shoe shop meant to the barrio echoes a story that has been told too many times in Madrid, but I'm telling it again because it is one of the many acts of resistance we have against the normalisation of the death of small businesses.

In their apartment on Calle Navas de Tolosa, officers found a letter ordering the first attempt at their eviction for non-payment of rent. The sisters were living in a flat owned by a private landlord, who filed a lawsuit in May 2023 for almost two years of non-payment for which he was owed €9,000, according to El País. The delayed payment coincided with the passing of their mother in February 2021 after she contracted Covid.

Buenavista 25 y Zurita 22 son dos pintorescos edificios residenciales en Lavapiés, situados en calles paralelas. Están conectados por un pequeño patio, a través del cual los vecinos de los 10 pisos intercambiaban poco más que saludos cordiales mientras tendían la ropa a secar. Sin embargo, a mediados de marzo, tuvieron que ir mucho más allá de la cordialidad y convertirse en aliados al enterarse de que sus dos edificios habían sido comprados por la productora cinematográfica Gloriamundi Producciones. La empresa ha empezado a presionar a los inquilinos para que se marchen, pero ellos no piensan dejar atrás sus recuerdos, sean de un año o de toda una vida.

Buenavista 25 and Zurita 22 are the addresses of two charming residential buildings in Lavapiés that stand back-to-back on parallel streets. They’re connected by a small patio, where residents of the 10 flats exchange pleasantries while hanging their washing out to dry. However, in mid-march, pleasantries turned to organising when tenants learned that both of their buildings had been bought by film production company Gloriamundi Producciones. The corporation is now actively pressuring tenants to leave, but they have no plans on leaving their memories – not of one year nor a lifetime – behind.

The 162-year-old pink building on the corner of Calle Bastero and Calle Toledo had been abandoned for 15 years. Works were recently done on the building but only to be semi-completed and again left empty and abandoned. But, today, the pink building now belongs to the neighbours.

No one does protest like the neighbours of Lavapiés. On Saturday 3 February, 10 bands played on the stage of the neighbours: in the kitchens, living rooms and doorways of @vecinostribulete7 bringing an unprecedented concert to a building of 50 flats that are set to be evicted.

José (de 71 años) es inquilino de toda la vida del edificio 7 en la calle Tribulete, en Lavapiés. Su hija Blanca, apodada Blankita por sus padres, pasó los primeros 30 años de su vida allí. A pesar de ya no vivir allí, ha tomado la batuta – junto con su madre, Blanca – de la defensa del piso en el que sus padres han vivido durante más de 40 años.

José, 71, is a lifelong tenant of Calle Tribulete 7 in Lavapiés. His daughter Blanca, who José calls ‘Blankita’, spent the first 30 years of her life here. Despite no longer living here, she has taken up the mantle – along with her mother Blanca – of defending the apartment in which her parents have lived for more than 40 years. 

The Ley de Vivienda is a brand-new housing law, the first of its kind in Spain, created by the current government. It is Podemos candidate Alejandra Jacinto who pushed for this law and who is hoping, if voted for, to have the powers to enforce it in the Comunidad de Madrid.

As a long-term renter not out of choice, this is pretty much how I see it. But there are fundamental differences and multiple discriminatory factors at play.