Crowdfunding for a Maricarmen monument in Madrid

A monument to Maricarmen: a tribute to eviction and a political target

The proposal sounds simple and odd at the same time: raising money from private individuals to put up a sculpture in Madrid dedicated to Maricarmen, the woman evicted by a vulture fund. The idea began as a tribute to her and to everyone who has lost their home to property speculation. It was meant to be a small gesture. It has ended up as a gauge of the culture war over housing, and it has a plan B: if there is money left over, another monument for Paquita, presented as the new Maricarmen.

What does the crowdfunding for the Maricarmen monument propose?

There is no institutional promoter or public budget: the initiative is set up as a collective fundraising effort among private individuals, a neighbourhood crowdfunding. The stated goal is twofold. On the one hand, to remember Maricarmen, evicted by a vulture fund after a life described as difficult. On the other, to turn her figure into a symbol of all the tenants who have lost their homes to property speculation in Madrid. The second monument, Paquita's, remains an afterthought conditional on there being money left over.

Why is the eviction linked to a 1994 law?

At the origin of the case a date keeps coming up: 1994. Part of the analysis places the problem there, pointing out that the rule forcing this woman to leave her home dates from the socialist era of Felipe González, a point attributed to Miguel Boyer. The argument is that the tenancy legislation of the time ended the old-rent regime inherited from earlier periods, which protected tenants with contracts far below market rates. The underlying question is whether that corrected a privilege or dismantled the last network of cheap rentals. Another element is added: the woman's registration as a resident in a municipality in the Madrid sierra, which, according to that reading, would already have forced her to leave the home.

Young people's renting versus the protected tenant

Part of the discussion shifts the focus away from Maricarmen towards young people. It argues that the real problem is not the person losing an old contract, but the one who cannot rent anything affordable on a starting salary. Along those lines, it points out that the woman would have enjoyed a cheap rent for decades —there is talk of 40 years paying and 27 collecting a pension— while an entire generation competes for the same housing stock on equal or lower wages. Seen through that lens, the tribute would reward a position of privilege.

There are also those who argue the opposite: that losing your home in old age is not made up for with a symbol. The gesture was a sculpture. It has ended up highlighting the rift between two narratives of the same city, that of the long-standing tenant watching their contract fall and that of the young person who never got to sign one. Can a monument tell both stories without taking sides?