Once I sent a photo of Tribulete 7 to someone who had lived on Topete 7. Until this happened, I hadn’t realized that I had these streets mixed up and that they are two different ones, the first in Lavapiés and the second in Tetuán. It’s clear that Topete is misplaced, “why isn’t it next to Tribulete and Sombrerete?” I thought, a result of the confusion. The reason I was mistaken was because I had heard many little stories about Topete 7, those that happen when someone arrives in Madrid to study and shares a two-room ground floor with three people: one with a window to a tiny interior courtyard; the other, with a window to the living-dining-bedroom of the last to arrive (and you don’t need to be part of the Artemis 2 crew to know that more cathode rays than sunlight come in through there). The bathroom and kitchen couldn’t afford to have windows either. Watch out! The living-dining-bedroom also had a window… to the tiny interior courtyard. With that information, one afternoon when I was passing by Tribulete, I noticed the banners and posters hanging from the balconies and windows of the building at number 7. I photographed it and sent it via WhatsApp to the friend who had lived on Topete with a message that said something like “passing by your old home.” I associated a house with only two windows to a building whose facade screamed its struggles to survive, as it was being suffocated and vultures were circling overhead waiting for it to die. I don’t find it so strange. Housing problems live in Tribulete, Sombrerete, Topete, Alpedrete, Brunete, Albacete… I can’t say anything about the Manchegan city, but I would bet that the two Madrid municipalities suffer the ravages of the capital becoming more unlivable every day — and now I’m only referring to housing prices — people flee it if it doesn’t expel you first and push up the prices of homes in increasingly extensive surroundings; at this rate, they’ll reach Albacete and beyond.
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“A married man wants a home,” says an outdated saying. Everyone wants a home, but it’s not a desire, it’s a right. Lately, few articles are repeated more than Article 47 of the Constitution: “(…) Public authorities shall promote the necessary conditions and establish the relevant regulations to make this right effective, regulating land use according to the general interest to prevent speculation.” Lately, few articles are more ignored by public authorities.
The last time I heard that old saying, it struck me a lot. It was said in I Am Tribulete 7 by José Santamaría who has been “all his life” — since 1981 — married to Blanca Andreu and who has been “all his life” living in Tribulete 7 and who now see themselves looking for “a place to die,” the couple says realistically and without a hint of drama. The housing problem — the lack of it, sky-high prices… — pierces all generations like a spear that wounds. As it wounded José, Blanca, and their neighbors: Nani, Cris, María Jesús, DJ Jessie, Antonia… protagonists of I Am Tribulete 7, a documentary directed by Leah Pattem and Elisa González. A “choral novel” in the words of María Jesús González, the “shopkeeper” of the community, as this neighbor calls herself, who ran the shoe store on the ground floor. The shoe store and the public square, that is, the meeting place.
Pattem and González accompanied this community of neighbors from March 2024 to April 2025 and have captured in their documentary a unique story and at the same time so common that it can inspire many. What the banners hanging from the facade shouted the day I photographed it was that the building had been bought by Elix Rental Housing, a vulture fund that uses its claws to destroy the nests each neighbor has built. But they found a resistant, united community, a Gaulish village standing up to the empire. And now, the empire is waiting for what a judge will say: for the first time in Spain, a court accepted a complaint of real estate harassment. “There are still towers to fall,” says the song Madrid Belongs to Us by Biznaga.
Before, I Am Tribulete 7 reflects how the foundations and lives of this building, which is already 107 years old (another seven), have shaken. There is a Spanish animated film that graphically shows the cracks that open when the roof is in danger; well, there is more than one, but I refer to Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake, a film directed by Irene Iborra that addresses the housing problem from the point of view of a girl whose whole world is breaking around her.
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It pierces, wounds, all ages: Olivia, Jose… suffocated by what should be their refuge, their home. Kids who grow up in apartments with space and who, due to circumstances beyond their control, end up worsening their living conditions because their parents have to move far from their friends, to small houses, and although they adore their siblings, they didn’t expect to share a room with them throughout adolescence. And, given the way things are, who knows for how long. And yes, some will say this has always happened, but it’s about getting better, not settling.
I Am Tribulete 7 documents, records, and reflects an era; its main inhabitants could be anyone. The housing crisis not only wounds and pierces lives, but life, the world, cinema, books… The other day I was looking at some of the Economic Poems by Oriol Vilanova, Spain’s representative at the Venice Biennale, which starts on May 9; a thought immediately struck me: “The apartments could also be affordable.” In May, La Imprenta will publish Habitable Poems, a poetry anthology coordinated by Edurne Batanero. The title says it all: poetry pierced by the need for housing. Like Idealista, from Barrett publishing, the first book in this label’s blind catalog, which to celebrate its first decade during 2026 will publish eight anonymous books, an exciting experiment where stories take precedence. This crisis generates ideas and publications — in recent months also, Before All This Was City, by Pedro Bravo, and Tenant Generation, by Javier Gil — and formats and exhibitions and…, and … pierced, wounded, by the pandemic of this era, for which it seems no one is seriously looking for a vaccine.
Article 47 and I Am Tribulete 7, rhyme. Let’s see if a coda is finally created to prevent speculation.