An 87-year-old disabled woman who was forcibly removed from her Madrid apartment on a stretcher has reached an agreement to return to the home she has lived in for more than 70 years, her lawyer announced, as tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets across Spain demanding urgent action on a deepening housing crisis.

Maricarmen Abascal was evicted from her apartment in Madrid's Retiro neighbourhood on 23 September and subsequently hospitalised with exhaustion. Her father had first rented the property in 1956, and she continued as a tenant after his death under a capped rent. In 2018, investment firm Urbagestión purchased the apartment and raised the monthly rent from around €500 to €2,650 — later reduced to €1,650 — a figure still far beyond Abascal's monthly pension of €1,350. Three earlier attempts to evict her had been blocked by the courts. Her lawyer, Beatriz Duro, told a press conference that both parties had shown goodwill and that Abascal would return under a new contract at roughly her original rent of around €500, inclusive of expenses. Duro described the agreement as "the result of social mobilisation," though it will be signed once Abascal feels well enough.

Abascal's case became a lightning rod for public anger over Spain's broader housing emergency. On Saturday, tens of thousands marched through Madrid, and in the days that followed, hundreds of protesters erected tent encampments on the Puerta del Sol — one of the capital's most iconic central squares — with demonstrations spreading to Barcelona, Seville and Málaga. The camps have drawn a broad cross-section of activists, though it is younger residents who appear most prominently among those sleeping in tents. A 28-year-old protester named Armand, who has moved four times in five years in Madrid and pays €445 a month in rent while sharing with housemates, captured a sentiment voiced widely: "I would like to build something for myself, without financial stress."

The scale of the crisis is stark. Spain's central bank estimates a current shortage of around 700,000 to 750,000 homes, with warnings the deficit could surpass one million by 2028. Against this backdrop, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's government moved to present an emergency housing decree at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The proposed measures include an anti-eviction shield through 2027 and 2028, automatic extensions for expiring rental contracts, regulation of room-by-room rentals, and a VAT increase on tourist apartments — several of which had previously been blocked in parliament. Negotiations through the night involved intense wrangling between the Socialist Party (PSOE) and smaller coalition partners and parliamentary allies, each seeking to claim credit for a political response while disagreeing on how far the measures should go.

Abascal's supporters welcomed her personal victory but vowed to press on. "The genie is out of the bottle," as one Dutch correspondent covering Spain put it — meaning the broader protest movement is unlikely to be quieted by the resolution of a single case. Housing campaigners argue that emergency decrees, while significant, do not address the structural shortage of affordable homes that is squeezing low-income tenants, young workers, and vulnerable residents across Spain's major cities.