At ten in the morning, an applause breaks the silence of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente street, in the Moratalaz district. In front of number 51, dozens of neighbors hug and smile because Manuela, a 53-year-old woman whose delicate health condition forces her to remain connected to an oxygen tank for 16 hours a day, will finally not be evicted. In the building known as El Ruedo, named for its resemblance to a bullring, the anguish of the last six days gives way to relief. The Social Housing Agency (AVS) of the Community of Madrid has suspended the judicial eviction scheduled for this Friday and has announced that it will regularize the woman’s rental contract after reviewing the file and recognizing that she had the right to the home from the beginning. The decision puts an end, at least for now, to six days of uncertainty during which the Moratalaz resident had even prepared boxes in case she finally had to leave the house where she has lived for 35 years.
“They confirmed by phone that the eviction is suspended, that they have reviewed the file, that they have indeed verified that the holder of the right to the home was Manuela and that they will proceed to regularize the contract, which is the technical name for the procedure corresponding to this type of situation,” explains her lawyer. The resolution represents a 180-degree turn compared to the situation just a few hours earlier. According to Manuela’s defense, on Thursday at two in the afternoon they were told that the eviction was still going ahead. Three hours later, a new call arrived: the administration had reviewed the file and changed its stance.
Manuela’s story dates back to 1991. That year she was rehoused from the El Pozo del Huevo settlement into a public housing unit of the then Madrid Housing Institute (IVIMA), now the Social Housing Agency. However, the contract only recognized her partner, Jonathan, as the holder, while she appeared only as his wife, even though both were listed as awardees during the rehousing process. The paradox is that the man never lived in the home because he went to prison before the move. Since then, Manuela has lived continuously in the property, paid the rent for more than three decades, took on the maintenance of the house, and even became president of the neighborhood community.
In 2023, an inspection by the Social Housing Agency found that the contract holder did not live there. The regional administration then terminated the contract for breach of that condition and initiated eviction proceedings, without recognizing Manuela’s right to remain in the home. According to Roberto Borda, from the Apoyo Association, the key to the case was precisely the rehousing documentation. “There are papers that mention only Jonathan; on the day of the award both appear, with the name and ID of both as awardees of the home. The contract only lists Jonathan as the holder because he went to prison, but Manuela signs as his wife.” In the following years, he adds, the Community of Madrid sent payment requests in the name of both as awardees of the home.
The situation took a turn when the legal services submitted that documentation to the court. “It seems the Administration acknowledges there was a mistake. At two in the afternoon they tell us it will be executed and at five that it won’t,” summarizes Borda. The news reached Manuela when she had already accepted that she would have to leave her home. “I didn’t believe it when they called me, I didn’t believe it. It’s a miracle from heaven,” she says, still emotional. “When they called to tell me it had been stopped and that they were going to make a new contract in my name, I started crying with joy. They have acknowledged they made a mistake and that I truly am a person who was rehoused and who has been living here for 35 years.”
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The case had taken on significant social importance because, as neighborhood organizations denounced, it reflected the current consequences of an administrative practice common decades ago: recognizing only the man as the holder of certain contracts. That circumstance now left Manuela, 53 years old, without legal protection despite being the sole occupant of the home along with her son, and the person who had paid the rent punctually.
The entities that have supported her during the process also argued that the woman is in a situation of special vulnerability due to her health condition and limited financial resources, and recalled that expelling her from the home would ignore the reality of the rehousing carried out in 1991. The suspension of the eviction prevents, for now, that conflict from materializing. The next step will be the regularization of the contract, a procedure through which the Social Housing Agency will formally recognize Manuela as the tenant of the home where she has lived for 35 years.
Meanwhile, in El Ruedo the hugs continue, no one is in a hurry to leave. After a while, Manuela takes the floor to thank the support received over the last few days. “Thanks to all the people who have moved, this has been possible. These people have finally recognized that I have a right, they have corrected themselves, they have stopped the eviction and the only thing I hope is that they soon make the contract for my home,” she says emotionally, surrounded by her son and her five grandchildren. “I am the only one who has been living here for 35 years, the one who was rehoused and the one who has been paying for my home. I have no words to thank you for coming; this is a dream come true, because I have spent six days that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Thanks to all the associations for helping me, they have shown humanity. It is not right that they threw me out on the street just for being a woman and that they didn’t recognize my rights,” she protests from her chair.
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