Home Is Where the Heart Is — So Why So Heartless, España?

The death of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal following her eviction in Madrid brings Spain’s housing crisis painfully close to home — and makes me think about loneliness, community and the places where we feel safe.

I am learning that you can spend an entire day surrounded by people and still feel lonely when you put your key in the front door.

My days are full. Setting up a business, meeting people, making decisions, answering messages and generally trying to fit three working days into one. Those who know me will appreciate that sitting quietly in a corner has never been my natural position. I would probably end up reorganising the corner.

I am involved, visible and surrounded by people. I am lucky.

But coming home after a night out still feels strange after thirty years of being a duo. You have laughed, chatted, enjoyed yourself. Then you close the door and realise there is nobody for the final discussion. Who said what. Who looked happy. Whether “You’re looking well, considering” was a compliment or grounds for a small diplomatic incident.

Teddy and Gracie are fantastic company, but the late-night post-mortem remains a training issue. Teddy wants to know whether I brought anything edible. Gracie believes all social disagreements can be resolved by going to bed. Neither has yet said, “I thought she was being a bit off with you too,” which is the precise level of emotional intelligence I require at midnight.

I adore them. They fill my home with affection and make every return feel like an occasion. But I miss that ordinary human conversation. The little debrief that says someone is interested in the unremarkable details of your day.

After thirty years, its absence takes some getting used to.

Loneliness Behind a Busy Life

So imagine fifty years. Sixty years. Imagine losing your companion when your world has already become smaller, your health less reliable, your opportunities to go out less frequent. The loneliness must, for some people, be overwhelming.

And then imagine losing the home that still makes you feel safe.

Maricarmen Abascal was 87. On 23 September, she was evicted from her Madrid apartment after living there for more than seventy years. She was taken away on a stretcher and admitted to hospital. On 7 October, Madrid’s tenants’ union announced her death. She never returned home.

More than seventy years in her special place.

I did not know Maricarmen, and I will not pretend to know her private life or feelings. But I can understand wanting to remain somewhere that holds so much of your existence.

Home smells familiar. It feels familiar. You know the chair that supports your back, the window that catches the light, the drawer containing something you cannot find anywhere else because, quite reasonably, you put it somewhere “safe”.

It holds the possessions other people might dismiss and you would never part with. The photograph. The chipped cup. The little thing someone brought you back from somewhere, years ago.

You know its sounds. You can find your way around in the dark. When everything outside feels uncertain, that familiarity is comforting.

As I navigate a life I did not expect, I understand more deeply how much that matters. There are days when you need somewhere you can stop being capable for five minutes. Somewhere you can shut the door and simply be yourself.

Why should an 87-year-old woman not have that comfort after more than seventy years?

Why should she have to fight for it?

Maricarmen Abascal: A Return Home That Came Too Late

An agreement was eventually reached that would have allowed Maricarmen to return under an affordable tenancy. She died before she could go back.

That is what I cannot get past. A way was found. People eventually managed to agree.

Why did it take her removal and a public outcry to get there?

I find it abhorrent that someone so elderly and vulnerable endured that upheaval when, ultimately, an arrangement could be reached for her to stay.

I am not claiming that the eviction medically caused her death. What happened is distressing enough without adding anything we cannot establish. She lost her home, went into hospital and died without returning.

Por favor. Where was the humanity when she needed it?

Why Community Matters — and Why We Need Simply Thriving

This is why community matters so much to me. Someone noticing that you have not arrived. Someone ringing because you have gone quiet. Someone asking how you are and staying long enough to hear something beyond “Fine, thank you.”

Loneliness can be crippling, and it does not always announce itself. Sometimes it has its hair done, puts on a lovely outfit and makes everyone else laugh.

Sometimes it has just had a very good evening.

That is why Simply Thriving, set up by the unstoppable Val Williams to help combat loneliness, matters. Having somewhere to go, someone to meet and a reason to put a date in your diary can make an enormous difference.

A familiar face makes the next visit easier. A conversation becomes a friendship. Gradually, there are people who expect to see you, who know your name, who would notice if you stopped coming.

I get much of that contact through building a business. Others have to summon the courage to seek it out. We should make that easier. “Come with me on Thursday” is much more useful than “You must get out more.”

Living in Spain, we can be surrounded by sunshine, busy terraces and people apparently having the time of their lives. That can make loneliness harder to admit. You almost feel obliged to be happy because the sky is blue.

People do that. When we remember to.

Spain’s Housing Crisis Has a Human Cost

And while we help people feel welcome outside their homes, we must think about their security inside them.

At one end, young adults cannot afford to leave the family home and begin independent lives. At the other, an 87-year-old is removed from the home in which she has spent most of hers.

How are people supposed to build a future or feel safe growing old?

To me, those human consequences make this a humanitarian crisis. It affects people’s independence, their relationships and their ability to imagine tomorrow without fear.

I understand property has costs. I have spent enough years in business to know that bills need paying. Small landlords can face real difficulties too. But surely age, vulnerability and the impact of uprooting someone must carry real weight in the decisions being made.

Today, think about the neighbour you have not seen, the friend adjusting to an empty house, the person who always says they are fine but never seems to have plans.

Make the call. Offer the lift. Invite them properly, with a day and a time.

And when housing comes up in conversation, remember the people inside those properties. Their routines, their memories, their fears. The lives being lived behind the doors.

Tonight, when I put my own key in the lock, Teddy and Gracie will greet me as though I have returned from six months overseas rather than dinner. The late-night discussion will still be disappointingly one-sided, unless it concerns biscuits.

The quiet may still feel strange. But I will have the comfort of familiar rooms, familiar smells and somewhere I can close the door and feel safe.

Maricarmen should have had that comfort too.