Marie Carmen's message!

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The case of Spanish citizen Marie Carmen (87 years old), who died last Wednesday weeks after she was evicted from the apartment in which she lived for more than 70 years, has turned into a political crisis in Spain. The socialist government resigned after failing to pass emergency legislation in Parliament to protect tenants due to opposition from right-wing parties. There will be early parliamentary elections at the end of next November. One wonders how a housing problem involving an elderly woman turned Spanish politics upside down. But it is democracy that makes the tragedy of one person the main concern of an entire nation.

The issue is not only political. The tragedy of Marie Carmen touches the deepest human fears and embodies the true meaning of snatching not only the body from the house in which he spent his entire life and which became his homeland, but also the snatching of dignity and security, only to end up dying far away from it. Forced eviction from housing, especially for those in their final years, is a devastating psychological trauma that reflects the height of helplessness and human humiliation.

This tragedy expresses two views of housing: the first is its owners, real estate companies and building contractors, who consider the apartment or house merely a financial return and a profitable investment. The second is expressed by millions upon millions of people, for whom housing represents a basic right to life. The death of the Spanish woman is a cry and a warning to the world that behind every eviction decision, and every increase in rent prices, human lives may be lost, and hearts may stop beating out of grief, distress, and pain.

Marie Carmen's letter must be read well in Egypt. Despite the difference in legal and social conditions between Egypt and Spain, there is a close similarity in the mechanisms driving the housing and rent crisis in them. There is a wide gap between wages and rents. In Spain, rents rose by 87%, while wages increased by only 30%. In Egypt, apartment rents, especially in Cairo and Alexandria, have skyrocketed (a new law) that is not commensurate with the limited annual increases in employee salaries. In Spain, the real estate market is suffering from the entry of international investment companies that bought real estate and sharply raised the value of their rents. In Egypt, the real estate sector is witnessing an influx of Arab investments, which has re-priced real estate at very high values. The result is a decrease in the supply available to the average citizen.

With the implementation of the old (new) rent law for the year 2025 in Egypt, which imposes a 15% annual increase and sets a 7-year deadline for terminating housing contracts, real humanitarian concerns emerge regarding the elderly, widows, and marginalized groups, who cannot face the torrent of annual increases. Yes, there are proactive government attempts to avoid the tragic scenario (expulsion and eviction), but the crisis is so widespread and comprehensive that it requires necessary radical and practical steps. In the foreground is the significant expansion in the construction of state-owned housing units allocated for long-term rental at subsidized prices. It is necessary to identify those affected and provide them with alternative apartments. If these measures do not succeed in resolving the problem, then considering postponing the application again becomes an urgent necessity.

The right to decent housing is an integral part of the dignity of the simple human being. We do not want the Marie Carmen tragedy to happen to us.

Quoted from “Al-Masry Al-Youm”