‘I pay $500 for 5 square metres’: Spain’s protesters, in their own words

Tens of thousands of young people have protested across Spain over the housing crisis, with unions calling a nationwide strike under the slogan “wages, housing and prices”. The protests have intensified after an 87-year-old woman was evicted from her Madrid home over unaffordable rent and died in hospital on the day her landlords agreed she could return. The crisis is also shaping politics, as parliament rejected government measures to protect renters and the governing coalition called a snap election for 29 November.

The Bank of Spain estimates the country is short of 750,000 homes, a figure that could reach one million next year. Protesters describe sharing crowded flats, paying a large share of their income in rent and facing insecure short-term contracts or possible eviction. In Madrid, one 27-year-old social worker pays $400 a month for a room in a shared 45-square-metre flat, while a 24-year-old Barcelona data analyst still lives with his family because housing costs remain out of reach.