An 87-Year-Old's Eviction and the 'Vulture Funds': Why Spain's Housing Anger Has Boiled Over
Thousands marched in Madrid after María del Carmen Abascal died before she could return home. Housing now sits at the centre of Spain's snap election.
For more than 70 years, María del Carmen Abascal lived in the same home in Madrid. Then an investment fund bought the building. According to Outlook's account, the new owners sought rent increases she could not afford on her pension, and after a long legal fight she was evicted on September 23. She was taken to hospital with anxiety and exhaustion. An agreement was eventually reached that would let her return — but she died on October 7, aged 87, before she could. No cause of death has been announced.
On Thursday, October 8, thousands of people marched through Madrid in her honour, renewing demands over rents, housing shortages and evictions. Her story has become a symbol of a crisis many Spaniards feel personally.
Who are the "vulture funds"?
Tenant groups in Spain use the term fondos buitre — vulture funds — for corporate investors that buy up residential buildings or portfolios of distressed mortgages and are accused of raising rents or pushing tenants out to increase returns.
It is a charged and contested label. Not every institutional investor behaves this way, and economists have warned that clamping down too hard on private investment could discourage the construction of new homes and make the shortage worse. But the phrase has stuck because it captures a widespread feeling that housing has become a financial asset first and a home second.
The numbers behind the anger
Spain's housing deficit is estimated at about 750,000 homes and could reach a million by 2028, Outlook reports, citing Reuters. House prices have risen faster than wages, and more than half of Spaniards aged 18 to 34 still live with their parents or depend on them financially. Social housing makes up just 1.7 per cent of the country's housing stock, one of the lowest shares in the European Union.
From the streets to the ballot box
The protests have been building for weeks. Activists demonstrated near the Spanish Parliament on October 2, protesters set up camp in Madrid's Puerta del Sol, and in Barcelona riot police clashed with demonstrators after a march.
The political stakes are now explicit. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's government has proposed restrictions on speculative property purchases, stronger rent protections and incentives for affordable housing. After Parliament rejected earlier emergency housing measures, Sánchez called a snap general election for November 29 — with housing at the centre of the campaign.
Why it resonates beyond Spain
Spain's crisis is part of a wider pattern across many cities, from Lisbon to Toronto to Bengaluru: rising prices, short supply and growing investor ownership colliding with stagnant incomes. Few of these debates have a single villain. But as Spain's election approaches, one elderly woman's eviction has given an abstract problem a human face — and voters an issue they cannot ignore.
Sources
This article draws on the following reporting. Dates are when each source was originally published.
- Outlook India: Why 'Vulture Funds' Are At The Centre Of Spain's Housing Protests ·
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