Maricarmen is 87 years old. She had been living in the same house in Madrid for 71 years and this Wednesday she was evicted on the fourth attempt. Seventy-one years of life fit into a home; in a spreadsheet, apparently, they fit into a profitability box.
The conflict went to court and the property owner obtained a favorable ruling. It is worth stating clearly: the eviction had judicial coverage. But a legal decision does not oblige us to applaud its consequences, nor does it exempt administrations from asking themselves what they did to prevent an 87-year-old woman from ending up out of her home.
The property owner was demanding 2,650 euros per month for her to stay, compared to the approximately 500 she had been paying. Someone even appeared willing to cover the difference. That an elderly woman's continued residence in her home depends on the generosity of a stranger should shame us far more than any banner in front of the building.
Housing should be a guarantee for developing a dignified life. It cannot be left to speculation as if it were a Monopoly token.
There is the right to private property, of course. There is also Article 47 of the Constitution, which speaks of dignified housing and entrusts public authorities with preventing speculation. Some people cite the Constitution with prodigious memory until they reach that article. Then their vision clouds over.
Buying, revaluing, raising the rent, selling, and starting again can be a magnificent business. It has a small drawback: people live inside the houses. Young people who cannot become independent, families who dedicate an unbearable portion of their income to rent, salaried workers who cannot find a place to live, and elderly people for whom not even seven decades in the same home guarantee stability.
And here it is important to know who has the competence. The Statute of Autonomy attributes exclusive competence in territorial planning, urbanism, and housing to the Community of Madrid. Therefore, when we talk about public housing stock, regional housing policy, and residential alternatives in Madrid, the regional government cannot step out of the picture just when it's time to respond.
The State and the City Council also have instruments and responsibilities in their respective areas. What is not acceptable is turning the distribution of competences into a game of passing the buck. There are already sports for that; governing requires something more.
Housing policy cannot start when the cameras arrive, the street fills up, and an 87-year-old woman has her boxes packed. It starts earlier: with sufficient public housing, affordable rents, prevention of vulnerable situations, and dignified alternatives that do not appear only when the case becomes news.
Defending it does not eliminate private property. It means recognizing that housing fulfills a social function because it satisfies a basic need. The market can exist. What we cannot
accept is that its profitability is the sole criterion while the right to decent housing is reduced to a pretty phrase for speeches.
Maricarmen has already lost her home. No paragraph will return the 71 years she lived there. But her case should force us to decide what we are going to demand from those who have the responsibility to act, starting with the Community of Madrid.
A house can be an investment. Before that, it is the place where someone lives. And a housing policy that forgets that difference is not solving the problem: it is managing the expulsion of those who can no longer pay the next increase.
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