Housing

Welcome to The No Frills Podcast. Join me on the streets of Spain to explore what people are really thinking and feeling. In this first ever episode of The No Frills Podcast, I record the birth of a new social movement that has culminated in Madrid’s Sol encampment, where thousands bed down in a “tent city” every night as a united protest against a housing system in crisis.

On Wednesday morning, Spain’s public broadcaster RTVE devoted extraordinary attention to Maricarmen’s eviction. Its coverage followed the 87-year-old through her final hours in the home where she had lived for more than 70 years, and continued after she was carried out on a stretcher.

“This is my home until the day I die, as is stated in the contract,” says Alejandro, whose battle has become the heart of a local campaign backed by the members of the new neighbourhood association AV La Chispera. “Alejandro resisted, and with good reason,” says the association. “His resistance has not been an individual act of stubbornness or personal preference. It has been a defence of people’s rights.”

Those who have met Alejandro over the years talk a lot about his passion and his faith, and how much he loves his barrio. At 81, there is one more fight he is determined to win: to stay in his home, and he has joined forces with a new force in the barrio. Over the past few weeks, Alejandro has worked closely with the brand-new neighbourhood association Asociación Vecinal La Chispera, in La Latina, whose members have pushed his campaign so hard that his story has now been covered by El País, La Sexta, El Diario, El Salto, Europa Press, TeleMadrid, Madrid Diario and more – in just the last two weeks.

At around 5.30am, just as the birds began chirruping, members of Madrid’s housing movement began gathering outside Mariano’s home. While the sound of neighbours talking at that hour is not unusual here, the mood on this occasion was tense. Between embraces and murmured complaints about lack of sleep, there was an unmistakable nervousness: after three previous attempts to remove him, Mariano was facing what he feared would be a fourth – and final – eviction order, this time signed off by a religious institution.

Two of the last historic buildings in Lavapiés has been saved from demolition. Just before noon today, following recognition of the buildings’ potential heritage value, police shouted from street level to the construction workers on the roof to stop work immediately. The two-storey buildings on Plaza Nelson Mandela – formerly home to Baobab, Madrid’s first Senegalese restaurant and an old guest house – now stands as a powerful symbol of a rare victory for the barrio.

Madrid’s right-wing city council has just approved what it claims is a “solution” to the city’s housing emergency. The ruling Popular Party (PP) argues that its new legislation will separate tourists from long-term residents by banning individual illegal tourist apartments within residential buildings. Yet, at the same time, it is paving the way for entire buildings to be converted into tourist-only accommodation, and enabling the conversion of commercial units to ground-floor tourist flats.

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 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.