What is Urbagestión and how does it operate, the company behind the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen in Madrid?

Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old Spanish woman with a 50 percent disability, was evicted on September 23 from a home in Madrid where she had lived for the past 70 years. The property is owned by Urbagestión, a company that has subsequently become the center of public debate regarding Spain's housing crisis.

The eviction sparked widespread protests and intense political debate across the country, transforming Maricarmen's case into a prominent symbol of the broader drama surrounding housing accessibility and vulnerable tenants in Spain. Concurrently, historical context from the period highlights past responses to extreme poverty and housing shortages in Spanish city peripheries, such as mid-20th-century housing construction initiatives in Valencia.